Well, we survived Christmas. Things didn't get off to a great start, so I wasn't to sure we would.

We had planned to leave for my parents shortly after Kevin got home from work on the 22nd, which would have been between 3 and 3:30. I spent the morning dealing with Alison and trying to get her stuff rounded up and ready to pack. Then I spent the afternoon getting suitcases packed and ready to go and trying to find time to take a shower. While all this was going on, I was also going in to settle Alison, who was supposed to be napping, down every 20 minutes or so. She kept saying her stomach hurt. Because she hadn't pooped in almost 2 days, I figured that was the problem, especially because I specifically asked her if she felt like she needed to throw up and she told me no and because she told me she did feel better when she passed gas. Despite it all, I had everything out in the garage, ready to go in the trunk, by 3:00. Kevin got home and had everything in the trunk by 3:15. At 3:20, I called my mom to tell her we should be leaving within the next 10 minutes or so while Kevin got Alison up and took her to the bathroom. The next thing I knew, Kevin was yelling that Alison just threw up. Great. When I got into the bathroom, there he was, standing in front of the closed toilet, holding her while she threw up all over the bathroom.

When she was done, he layed her down on the floor. She needed cleaned up and the easiest way to do that was going to be just putting her in the tub. I got her out of her puked on clothes and told him to get out of his, and tried, in vain, to get Alison calmed down. Kevin gave her a quick bath while I tried to clean up the bathroom. It became evident that more than clothes needed to be washed, so I grabbed the rugs and threw them and the clothes into the washer. Then I came back and made another go the bathroom. I don't deal with vomit well, and the smell almost made me sick, too. I couldn't even open the window to help with the stench because it was covered with plastic for the winter.

Alison, who was now dried off and dressed, rested on her bed for a little while and then decided she was fine. She hopped out of bed and pranced off to the living room to watch a Christmas video while we tried to decide what to do about our trip. We decided to wait a little longer and see how she was doing. In the meantime, we got her to eat a Pedia-pop. That seemed to be staying down. Kevin ran out and picked up McDonald's for the two of us. (So much for having all the dishes done before we left -- he served up burgers and fries on real plates). Alison came begging for french fries, so we figured she must definitely be feeling better. So we grabbed her "puke bucket," strapped her in the car seat, wrapped a big bib around her, just in case, and off we went.

We finally got to my parents' about 3 hours later than we had planned.

Friday was a real laid back day. We basically just hung out around the house for the day. My aunt and uncle were coming for lunch on Christmas Eve, so I helped my mom get some things ready for that. We also finished up baking some cookies. We went out for dinner and Alison "entertained" our server. As soon as he came to the table she asked him what his name was. Then after he asked what her name was she told him she was Alison "and that's grandpa, and that's grandma, and that's mommy, and that's daddy." I think we need to work on getting her to stop asking people's names right off the bat, but at least our server was a good sport about it. After dinner, we went out looking at Christmas lights. There was one house in particular that my mom wanted to show us. The house was covered in lights. Unfortunately, the lights weren't on that night. On the way back "home," we passed a house that had a yard full of those inflatable yard ornaments. Alison loved that, especially because one of them was the Grinch.

My aunt and uncle came for lunch on Christmas Eve. I don't think any of us were really looking forward to it, but we muddled through. The basic feeling is that my uncle is just sucking up to my mom until he gets his half of the money from my grandparents' estate (mom is in charge of it and will divide it up when she's good and ready....probably not until after they sell the house). At least it was over in a few hours.

We went to church Christmas Eve night. I was really dreading it. I knew it was really going to suck, and I was right. Seeing everyone for the first time since Matthew died was difficult. There were lots of hugs and lots of tears. The sermon made everything that much worse. It was entitled "Upside down Christmas," and the minister kept harping on the idea of things that didn't go as planned. By the time it was over I wished I'd just stayed home.

On the way home, we took another drive out to see the house with all the lights, and they were on this time. My mom was not kidding. The entire house, all the trees, and even the fence around the yard, were full of lights. We saw it as soon as we turned onto the street, and that was two block away from the house. It was a sight to behold. Alison couldn't have cared less.....she just wanted to see the Grinch.

When we were finally able to get Alison ready for bed, she came out and helped me pick out some cookies for Santa, and we put them and a glass of milk by the fireplace. Then we finally got her to bed. Once that was done, I wrapped one last present (I'd had it delivered to my parents' because I didn't want to take the chance that it wouldn't get to our house before we left) and then we started bringing out the stacks and stacks of presents. I know we didn't buy as much as last year, but there was as much, or more, than last year. We got to bed around midnight. My brother and his fiancee were going to be there at 7 Christmas morning. Coleen kind of rolled her eyes when we finally decided on a time, but we were planning to go to church at 10, and she hadn't seen the stash of gifts..... we were going to need that much time to open presents, eat and get ready for church.

My brother arrived at about 7:15 and woke us all up. He went into my parents' room saying, "I thought we were opening presents at 7:00, it's 8:30 and I've been here for an hour and a half!" Alison flipped over all the present under the tree. She had a lot of fun opening everything, but we still had to occasionally prod her along because she'd stop to play with one toy or another. When she got clothes, it was like the scene from "A Christmas Story" where Ralphie and Randy took the briefest look at the socks they had just unwrapped before pitching them over their shoulders and moving on in search of something more interesting. She'd tear open the boxes, see it was clothes of some sort and give it a toss and move on to the next thing. I don't know how we managed it, but I think we only opened one, or maybe two, new toys before we came home.

After the initial rush of the morning, Christmas was pretty laid back day. It was hard, too, because it was never far from my mind that Matthew would have been a month old that day. But there was reason to be happy, too. We made it through the day without anyone dying this year.

Kevin had taken the day after Chrismas off, which was nice. We didn't have the rush of getting packed and getting home so that he could be at work on Monday morning. My mom also had Monday off, so rather than leaving in the morning, we decided to wait until after lunch. It worked out well. We had one thing that needed to be returned, as Alison got two of the same jumper, and Kevin had won $12 on his scratch off lottery tickets. My mom and I went to exchange the jumper and cash in the lottery tickets. Let me just say that $12 was not worth the hassle I ended up going through to get it. We stopped at a gas station on the way home. I got out of the car and walked up to the door. There was a man standing in it, talking to the clerk. I would have been happy to wait a minute for him to finish up and come the rest of the way out. In fact, that might have prevented what happened next. He stepped out of the way, holding the door open for me, and the next thing I knew, instead of walking in through the door, I fell in through the door. Somehow I had missed the first step. I went down hard, but wasn't hurt, other than a scrapped up knee. I felt like a complete idiot, though. My mom saw it happen, and thought I had slipped on some ice, until the guy that had been holding the door drove away and she saw that there was no ice. No, it was just me being a total klutz. @@