A Holiday To Remember – ok

This Holiday wasn’t like any Christmas we’ve had before.

It began innocuously enough – some time off, a little last minute shopping, some late night movies (and charlie brown cartoons), cookies and gingerbread (graham cracker) houses, and a neighborhood party.

and then…

…at nearly 2:00 in the morning after the neighborhood party (a.k.a. Christmas Eve) The Wee One lost it.
“It” might be explained – rather described – as everything she had eaten earlier at the party.

Maybe she just had too much junk food?
I sure hope so.

Then she lost it again, and again…and again every coupla hours until late into that evening.

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image redacted as seriously too gross for this blog

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For being such a sick kid she sure was composed and matter of fact.

Momma?
Yes?
It’s throw up time again.
[It]
All done.

The rest of us watched, transfixed and with no small amount of dread, at the progression of this highly contagious stomach flu.
We all figured we wouldn’t be as composed as TWO when it struck us.

So this unfortunate turn of events cancelled our Christmas Eve at Monya and BopOp’s house. But thankfully, TWO was well enough to get new jammies.

The next morning Santa was still able to attend to his duties at our house. LaGrande woke up at about 3:30 but she graciously waited until 5AM to wake up the rest of us – out of concern for her sister’s condition.

TWO was unbelievably able to power through an approximately three hour present-unwrapping stint sans [It] and we thought we saw light at the end of the tunnel.

But alas, [It] continued it’s unabashed assault on TWO for the remainder of Christmas Day.
TheMommy took this free time to optimistically pack her bags in order that she may attend her brother’s wedding in Pennsylvania – and those same bags are still there today – obstinately so.

That’s because on the 26th, only about 18 hours before TheMommy was scheduled to depart, she…got…[IT].
Without the unsightly details, it was a somewhat different [IT] – but [IT] nonetheless.

So while TheMommy nursed herself along, LaGrande and I waited in horror, for our turn.
Turns out it never materialized in any real way; we escaped and we’re still giving each other mini high-fives over that one.

On the 28th, with TheMommy still tired out by a walk to the living room The Mermaids and I prepared ourselves for our planned trip to visit TheAmboyObserver and his family.

While TheMommy recovered at home (incidentally Monya was doing the same) TheMermaids, BopOp, Grumpy, TheAmboyObserver, HeidiCoaster, TheBoys and I shot arrows, found our first geo-cache, ate, visited, ate some more, walked, and visited (and ate) some more. All this while the kids danced endlessly in front of the Wii until their legs became sore.

When we returned home, sleep deprived from all the fun, we discovered that the street in front of our house needed maintenance – and so at precisely 8AM on Monday the 31st we got HammerJacked.
I took the liberty of getting some high-speed photography out of the deal.

Now it is 2013, amazingly enough, and we rang it in with another very late night and a neighbor…and their children.
Luckily the only ill effects were some seriously tired Mermaids (and parents) and the only thing we got for it was sleeping in until about noon the next day – I’ll take that.

This then was when we finally celebrated our Christmas with Monya and BopOp – a light dinner, some Tripoli, and a movie.
Bueno.

So, do I want to do that again if I can help it – no.
Do I want to remember it – kinda. So I wrote it down.
TWO may remember it someday – at the time it was a pretty crummy Christmas, but looking back, we made the best of it.