Well, at least it wasn't the Barfing Flu

Oh! Christmas! That joyous time of year! When the brown-clad Santa "UPS" Claus brings boxes of goodies and presents for all the good girls and boy!
This year there seemed to be more boxes than normal. Probably because I trolled Amazon quite a bit for my own shopping, and found some deals that could not be beat. Knowing the amount of wrapping that lay ahead, I started trying to wrap all those Christmas packages (and don’t forget gifts for Mary’s birthday!), about a week before the Big Day. Well, with running errands most days and with exhaustion at night, I probably only got about a fifth of the gifts wrapped ahead of time. THEN Santa John went out Christmas Eve and bought MORE gifts (he loves shopping X-mas Eve). He says to me, “You’ve got a LOT of presents to wrap stashed in the car.” And he didn’t even REALIZE the mountain awaiting me down in the Santa hidey hole in the basement. Ugh.\

So, we got the kids to bed, got a beer (John) and Smirnoff (me) and John put on the “background noise” movies he had rented. I still couldn’t tell you much about the plots or anything of “Iron Man 2” or “Clash of the Titans.” Considering what I DID see, I know I didn’t miss much. Anyway, I started wrapping probably around 9:30. John “helped” by checking off presents on his master list. “Oh dear,” he would say while ticking off another present, “that was tough, I’d better grab another beer.” He would pile up the gifts around me while saying, “Well, just as soon as a space gets cleared up, I’ll wrap some presents. I mean, I CAN’T wrap with no space can I?” I wrapped and wrapped and smarted off to John as he wasn’t fooling me ONE bit. I know the drill. I wrap. He watches. And taunts. (Jerk! LOL)

Finally, at 2:45 AM, I finished all the wrapping, and started heading to bed. Merry BAH HUMBUG.
Christmas morning we all wake up to four fifths of us having slight colds (Typhoid Izzy had already gotten over the one she had brought home from school). All were happy and excited and thrilled about the unwrapping—except Mary. She was a sickly, whiny, UN-happy camper. After the carnage, while the other two are already assembling Lego guys and playing with Zhu-Zhu pets, Mary was just laying on the couch with a Woe-Is-Me look on her face. One cool touch of Mama’s lips confirmed, she had a slight fever. Poor thing!
We started to get ready to go out for our Christmas tradition of Japanese-food-and-a-movie, but the sick one didn’t want to stir. I begged and begged her to take some Tylenol to kill the slight fever, but she kept stalling and refusing to take it. We finally made it to the restaurant, but Mary was just sitting there pining and whining away. Please, for the love of God, PLEASE, take your medicine! Oh…she was “afraid” to take it. Her D.A.R.E. officer has told her that drugs are BAD and that if she takes drugs now, they will cause PROBLEMS later! GOOD GRIEF, CHARLIE BROWN!
Even after explaining the difference between the Horrible Drugs that Deputy D.A.R.E. has been warning her about and the Good Drugs that doctors give you to make you feel better, she was still hesitant. And miserable. And…well, it did not really make for a pleasant time. FINALLY she took her Tylenol and within minutes was perking up and had some normal color and was wide-eyed and started SMILING again and ENJOYING her Christmas dinner…. SEE, honey? Some drugs are not BAD but are meant for GOOD!!!!! SERIOUSLY? I’M YOU’RE MOTHER, WOULD I GIVE YOU SOMETHING THAT WOULD BE BAD FOR YOU?????? Gahhhhhhh…..
Mary still played up the whininess a bit, so we decided not to go to the movies. Since John, Keith, and I also had a slight cold, we didn’t care much about just going home and enjoying some quiet time with our new presents.
I think one of the reasons we had so many packages under the tree this year is that Santa did not bring so many “big” gifts as normal. Many more smaller presents were under the tree—more games and things for the whole family. More to unwrap and technically less spent by Santa.
Hits from under the tree:
John: a ticket to go to the LPGA tournament held here every year. And the dart board.

Carrie: a very nice cover (with a book light!) for her Kindle.

Mary: All! That! Art! Stuff! Especially the blank sketch books.

Keith: Star Wars Legos and Kirby’s Epic Yarn.

Izzy: Probably the Mosaics posters (Reconfirming that one should ALWAYS listen to Swistle when buying presents!). And…well, EVERYTHING.