Holiday Irony

Christmas Eve. Norman Rockwell, Thomas Kinkade and "Home for the Holidays" Christmas Carols. Snow falling, crackling fireplaces and the permeating scent of hot cider and sugar cookies. Presents under the tree and happy people opening colorful wrapping and bows while someone plays cheerful music and all sing along. A decorative table of red and green with all the holiday dishes like steaming turkey and sweet smelling honey baked ham....and then I woke up.

After spending all week buying and making the perfect holiday dinner, specially ordered to my family's request and packing all up so I could take the feast safely to my mom's, I got a call that my one sons had the flu and probably would not be eating. "Oh, by the way we will be about 3 hours later than originally planned" was also part of the message. So now with the feast already cooked it must be kept warm for another 3 hours. Well they did arrive and everything was now warm and cooling fast. I quickly set everything out and little did I know what was to come. The dinner was over in the blink of an eye. (good thing I got a picture) No one was really very hungry due to the flu and the lateness of the day, but I came prepared; I brought lots of freezer baggies so they could all enjoy the meal for days to come. Didn't I just put all this food in trays to be eaten and now it's going in baggies? Normally we would have spent the remainder of the evening eating dutch apple and pumpkin pies, drinking coffee and playing scrabble, but due to my son not feeling well and baby Sierra being fussy from being gone all day they had to leave early.

Scene two. This was Christmas Eve, now for Christmas Day. Liz and I had a wonderful, well deserved day planned; we rode our bikes through the park, got a wonderful massage and had one night at the Hilton which I won in a raffle months ago. We arrived at the Hilton around 6:00 pm and checked in, got to our room and settled in. We were there for less than an hour and I started to feel not so great. To make a long night short, I had the flu with all it messy frills. Then a few hours later Liz too, joined me in the all night parade to the bathroom.

What happened to Norman Rockwell and Thomas Kinkade and our Perfect Little Christmas? I thought, isn't this ironic. Here were are in a beautiful Hotel, a night just for us to recoup from our way too busy week and we wake up from the dream to a nightmare.

Epilogue: We are all over the flu, yes the whole family got it. Christmas 2009 has past into the Historic Book of Nightmares and we are more than ready for 2010. Begin Again in 2010. :)