I have to tell you about an epic Christmas we spent in Mountain, N.D., at my sister and brother-in-law’s house.

We brought our Basset Hound Buddy with us because we couldn’t leave him at home alone.

Buddy was not the best behaved so when he acted up, we would send him into a time out in the basement.

My brother-in-law always bought a huge ham to serve us for supper. When the ham was done he brought it into the basement and poured all of the ham grease into a container on the floor. Unbeknownst to him, Buddy was in the basement and watching his every move.

As soon as my brother-in-law went upstairs Buddy helped himself to the ham grease.

Minutes later, we decided that Buddy could be allowed upstairs again. As soon as he entered the kitchen, he started to throw up the ham grease. The ham grease was everywhere. We all went into action trying to wipe up the ham grease as Buddy continued to throw up. Seems he lapped up all of the ham grease, which was about 2 gallons.

We finally got the ham grease cleaned up and Buddy, who was exhausted was fast asleep.

On a serious note, all of my thoughts and prayers go out to the people who have been impacted by the tornadoes and wildfires. Many of those people have lost everything, including friends and family members. This will probably haunt them during every Christmas to come.

I know you all are keeping these people in mind too as you celebrate with friends and family and I’m sure many of you are doing what you can to support these people because that is what farmers and ranchers do.