Nothing quite as colorful although December has been the month of gift.
Water heater early on, Mrs. KG4CGC gifted me with as well as some plumbing supplies and plumbing accessories. I chased down leaks between the water heater and the kitchen because I believe it was December 7th that we received the blessing of a lightning strike (somewhere) which traveled through the buried water lines. Apparently I wasn't the only one receiving blessings that week. On the bright side, we got our 15 years out of that thing after it was installed and never touched again since. Apparently, you're supposed to replace the elements (electric) every 5 years. Who gnu?

Last Tuesday while doing laundry ... the dryer just came to a dead stop. I got out my trusty Fluke type 87a and traced down the lack of electron flow to an overheat sensor. This was a Whirlpool Heavy Duty blah blah blah purchased in 2005. The problem was that I couldn't just replace the sensor but I could replace the whole timer unit, of which the sensor was located inside of, if I could find one. Local parts houses were not having it. Nah uh! Not one bit. The whole timer unit could be ordered but it could take 2 weeks or longer. Now keep in mind that after cooling down the sensor it still would not allow the tricky bastard electrons to flow and even though Mrs. KG4CGC didn't know anything beyond "I was working on it" she showed up an hour later with a new dryer AND WASHER in the truck.
I will say this, today's washers are gravity compromised. I was expecting a battle moving the new washer after having moved the old one out. Having the new units installed (top load washer) they certainly don't beat the water in the tub like they did in days of yore. A couple of swishes, soak, a couple of swishes, soak and they do it with less water. After the spin cycle the clothes are so centrifugally enhanced that the dry time is reduced orders of magnitude. My hope now is that these units will pay for themselves with reduced operating costs.

The next day I was tasked with hauling off the old units to the recyclers. The dryer, well, not much to it. I just put it on the truck after reducing the cardboard the new units came in to horizontal flatness. Much like a book. The washer, with it's malbalanced motor placement was a different story. After spending perhaps 20 minutes using Isaac Newton's Laws, I still couldn't get that fat bastard loaded on the truck. What ended up happening on my part was nothing short of sheer force of will as I grasped the guilty bastard in a half squat and placed it across my thighs as though I was to commence spanking its backside. Between the forward thigh thrust and the upward force exerted by what I believe now to be my face, I was finally able to close the tailgate and roll on down the road.
Did I mention I had no help unloading it?