First a little background. Elizabeth's birthday is at the beginning of December. From the beginning I was concerned that her birthday would be overshadowed by Christmas. Because of that I have a few rules. One is that any birthday presents must be wrapped in anything but holiday themed paper. The other one is that our Christmas tree won't go up until after her birthday has passed.
On my side of the family Christmas starts immediately after Thanksgiving. There were times when we actually put up our Christmas tree on Thanksgiving Day. Christmas is a big deal in my family. A Big Deal. Coming from this type of background makes waiting to put up the tree a pretty big sacrifice.
This year wasn't too bad. The problem came after Bethy's birthday. We all got sick. Some kind of head cold type deal. We didn't get it all at once either. Oh no, that'd be too easy. It started with Bethy and slowly worked it's way around the family. I had it the longest. Probably because I didn't get the chance to rest since I was busy taking care of sick people. By the time we were all better we were well into the middle of the month and I had a ton of catch-up housework to do.
I finally got the house presentable again and the kids get sick again. This time it's some kind of stomach flu thing that's been going around. I think Eric brought it home from work, the lady he shares a cubicle with was sent home puking. Twice. Wasn't it just sweet of her to share?
Where does that leave me you ask? That leaves me on Christmas Eve with no tree up. Feeling worn out and achy. I rallied the troops though, and we got it done. Without further ado I give you our little tree:
One thing you have to understand about our tree is that we don't put ornaments on it unless they are meaningful to our family. We could have a great big tree but I think it would look funny having those few ornaments all spread out. Each of the ornaments you see in that picture have some kind of special memory attached. Some of those ornaments belonged to my parents and were on every Christmas tree I had growing up. Every one in the family has an ornament from their first Christmas. Whenever we go on vacation we pick up a new ornament from wherever we are. The kids also get a new ornament every year that gets their name and the year written on it. When they move out they'll get to take those with them. I know I'm kind of a snob about it, but that's the explanation for our tiny tree.
Okay, back to the holiday. Christmas Eve was basically spent trying to prepare for Christmas. Eric and I were feeling pretty tired but we were excited for the kids so we just soldiered on. Of course we stayed up late waiting for the kids to go to sleep so that Santa could come, and come he did.
Unfortunately, Eric and I both woke up Christmas morning running fevers. The kids were all better but the parents were ailing. Due to the flu-like symptoms Church was definitely out of the question. We lazed around most of the day feeling sorry for ourselves.
Fortunately, the illness left really quickly. When we woke up this morning we were both feeling better. Not great but better. We've been playing catch-up all day, trying to get the house back together after the holiday. I've been running a fever off and on all day.
Things were so discombobulated that I also took a holiday from Dressember. I'm horrible, I know. Even today all I wore were my sweats and a grimy t-shirt. I'm going to try really hard to do better tomorrow, I promise!
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