You Can't Pick Family (but you can keep them out of the kitchen)

My wife has taken over the preparation of Christmas dinner and has been doing it now for several years. This usually involves meal preparation for at least 20 people. She starts cooking in mid December in order to have everything ready and she sets a very formal table. This year was particularly difficult as we had her mother living us for post op care following a triple bypass and heart valve replacement. But one thing that we can usually count on is that we will have plenty of leftovers and those can save her the chore of cooking at least for a few days while we nosh on them.

Yesterday we headed for the refrigerator to pull them out and microwave them for dinner but they were nowhere to be found. After some thought and picking through the memory of the chaotic clean up after the meal we determined that one of our "sisters in law" walked out of the house with most of our leftovers. She made off with all the oyster dressing, the scalloped potatoes, most of the white meat from the turkey and all of the stuffed roast pork. We don't begrudge people a take away plate but this was over the top. Well, lesson learned. She will not be allowed into the kitchen ever again.