In the final stages of negotiating to buy our first house, we were $1,000 under what the sellers wanted. In hindsight, it was just $1,000, but it was hard for us to up our offer. In the end, we wrote the microwave and little chest freezer that were in the house into the contract and paid the extra $1,000.

Since then we’ve joked that we have a $700 microwave and a $300 freezer (don’t ask me why the freezer got undervalued… although the microwave makes really excellent popcorn).

Despite low-balling it, we do like the freezer too. It’s small, but it allows Matt to feed his habit of always being stocked in case the apocalypse arrives.

Because Matt keeps us so well-stocked though, I often find myself emptying the entire freezer looking for the one tray of chicken breasts I’m sure is somewhere underneath the boxes of frozen fish and 17 packages of bacon. (There’s no question about Matt’s priorities–and yes, I actually counted 17 packages).

In his desire to improve his bacon stockpile, Matt has been campaigning to upgrade the freezer for some time. I’ve been holding out. However, when 100+ pounds of venison came into our lives at the beginning of November, I relented.

We could get a bigger freezer. But I was adamant it had to be upright. I was not going to spend more time mining through an even bigger chest freezer.

Just before Christmas, our freezer arrived. Matt retrieved our venison from his father’s freezers–yup, plural. (The propensity to stockpile frozen food is genetic). And we loaded up the new freezer.

The venison got a shelf, the whole bottom drawer and a few of the door shelves as well. Deer burgers anyone?

Despite being one-third filled with venison, there’s still lots more room. This freezer is huge. Cubic footage was our biggest criteria in choosing the new freezer. To help keep us organized, I purchased some bins from the dollar store. We have one for chicken, wieners (sausages and hotdogs), vegetables, breads, seafood, and, of course, one just for bacon.

We’re calling this our Christmas gift to each other. (Isn’t being a grown-up so cool? Forget about video games or gadgets. We get appliances for Christmas.) It’s not as big as the couch from our first year and definitely not close to the fireplace from last year, but the new freezer is absolutely an upgrade from our old one.

What did you get for Christmas this year? Do you have a freezer? Is yours upright or chest? Any freezer organization tips to share? Do you have venison in your freezer? Any venison recipes to share? We’re going to be eating it for awhile.