This Is An Unspoken Tradition In Minnesota Around The Holidays
Anyone who grew up in Minnesota knows that you need a cardboard box, a porch, a garage, or just a snowbank.
When I lived down South, everyone has 2 or 3 refrigerators. My family out in Phoenix have 2 or 3 refrigerators. Living in Minnesota, I only have 1, so did my relatives, that's all we needed. In Minnesota, we have a built-in extra fridge or freezer.
I remember going to my Uncle Ron and Aunt Pat's house and putting ice cream outside and getting a soda from the porch. They just put the whole case or 12 pack out there. The parents would send kids on beer runs so they didn't have to go to the cold porch. We kept what we needed to get to right away in the fridge, everything else went in the porch or outside.
You could look outback and in the snowbank were bottles of wine or liquor and bottles of beer lined up by the sidewalk, the adults would send the kids out in jackets and boots to make a run of wine or beer to bring in and stock the fridge.
My Dad made homemade ice cream when I was a kid, we went out the back door, got snow, made the ice cream, and then put it outside the back door to keep cold. I even remember at Christmas time putting leftover Turkey, potatoes, gravy, stuffing, etc. right out in the garage in a styrofoam cooler.
When you would come to our house you would drop the soft drinks, beer, wine, or alcohol with the others out in the garage. You would walk through the path of coolers and bottles and cans to get to the back door because that's where we kept the excess food and drinks.
When I moved down to Tennessee and Louisiana, no one believed that we could just set our food and drinks out the back door in order to keep it cold. They would never imagine that.
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