The Christmas that kept on giving.............

christmas 2010 will go down in the record books as the "christmas that kept on giving"..........

exhibit one: 

 see the sweet little old lady on the left?  (not the one on the right.....hahaha!)

we'll call her.......grandma. 

granny. 

or....perhaps typhoid mary.

 

let's go all the way back to the thursday before christmas.  the 23rd.  we want to go to okeene early because it just isn't enough time to be together just christmas eve and day.  we load my car.....including shell and josh and allllllll the things you take with a baby.  we're pulling out of the driveway, heading west...approximately half a block......the phone rings.

"nellie called.  (nellie is grandma's caretaker)  grandma threw up this morning. just once but i thought you should know. "

(insert sound of screaching brakes here......)

"what should we do?  go? stay here another day? go to skip's and spend the night?"

we decide to play it "safe" and stay home and go in the morning.  so we let the pregnant one decide where to have lunch, eat and go home.....set out early as we can in the morning.

crap.   that blows. 

losing a day of togetherness.  of love.  of sharing the same space......

everybody makes it the next day.  lovely time laughing and enjoying just being together.   good food.  great family time.  nearly EVERYONE was able to be there.

we wake up on christmas morning.....kids squealing and running....wrapping paper flying....josh discovered his stocking and the rockin' truck the jolly bearded guy left. 

things are perking along smoothly.  starting to smell morning coffee.  The turkey is put in the oven.  one by one the rest are waking up and thinking about getting their turn in the shower.  (fifteen people and two bathrooms.  you have to think about getting your butt in the shower BEFORE the hot water runs out and NOT while someone is doing dishes, showering in the other bath or doing laundry, lest you have the top three layers of skin burned off when the water changes.)  we are a small community of planners. 

however.....the best laid plans can go awry. 

quickly.

charlene is busy getting the big meal started, chasing grandma out of the kitchen, showering first, watching the festivities, chasing grandma out of the kitchen, breakfast, answering all the grandkids questions, laughing, chasing grandma out of the kitchen, getting dressed, chasing grandma......

then evelyn comes with rick and meghan.  within probably an hour..... neither one of them are feeling so hot.  one thing leads to another...... oh NOOOO!

MAN DOWN!  MAYDAY!  MAYDAY!

the two of them are laying down in grandma's bed like roadkill.  once in a while someone ventures in and pokes them with a stick to see if they still move.  tera and i take over and pull off christmas dinner.  of course if tera and i are in charge, christmas dinner is served on paper plates.  chinet of course....we aren't heathens.  we all pitched in and cooked, cleaned up, and cleared out like a M*A*S*H* unit on a bug-out. 

packed bags, form a human chain to ferry the stuff down the stairs and out into waiting cars.  we're getting the hell out of there before we get sick too. 

?

HA!HA!

jokes on us.  we left on sunday .......

on monday philip and chad got it. evelyn is better, char is not.

on tuesday ray and rick got it.  charlene is still sick.

on wednesday tera got it.

on friday i got it. 

think the story is over??

ohhhhh NOOOOO. not a chance.

my darling grandson was to be ring bearer in his aunt amy's wedding. 

at 1:30 in the morning, josh sits up in the hotel room and barfs everywhere.

just once.

(see the pattern??  remember grandma?  the sweet, kindly old lady??)

looks good in the morning.  phew.  dodged a bullet there. 

or so they thought........

my daughter told me that at last count, 20 people from the wedding had come down with the stomach flu since the wedding. 

including.......the bride.

truly this was the christmas that just wouldn't stop. 

I've never been so damn happy to have a holiday season overwith in my entire life!

 

 

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