This is what Christmas turned out to be:
I'll start with Christmas Eve--we ate spaghetti and meatballs, which is a dinner we have at least once a week, but it was the only thing I could think to fix. As I started to boil the water for the spaghetti, Scott got a call from his boss that his mom had fallen in the parking lot of the store. They spent the night at the ER where they learned her nose was broken. On the homefront, Chaim cried while I tried to time the meatballs, pasta, and garlic bread. At various intervals, the phone would ring and I would try to answer it. We had just purchased smartphones, and I had absolutely no clue how to answer a call. I kept touching the little green phone, but that didn't work. I would try to call Scott back, but he couldn't answer the calls either. The girls stayed busy during this chaotic night by watching Incredibles. I know--it's not a classic Christmas movie by any stretch of the imagination, but they had watched every Christmas movie during the week of sickness, and this was their choice. Finally, before going to bed, we put out Nilla cookies, milk, and a cough drop. I hadn't cooked anything in a week so we resorted to Nillas, and the cough drop was Juliet's idea. In her words: "I'll bet Santa has a cough like us--he'll like the cough drop." He did. To complete it, the only special plate we could find was my Hanukkah plate with Hebrew writing and a menorah. The girls thought it was pretty, and that the writing was some form of elfish language. Again--I saw no reason to correct them. Before putting the girls to bed, I told them the Christmas story using their Fischer Price Little People Nativity set. They went to bed happy, even with their sniffles and coughs.
Christmas Day was great--opened presents, played with the presents, and stayed in our jammies all day long. This was part because we wanted to, and part because none of us had any energy from being sick. We watched the girls' new DVD, Snow White, while inhaling VapoRub. For Christmas dinner, the girls had hot dogs, which they considered the best Christmas dinner ever. Scott and I had ribs, which sounds better than it was. It was my first time making ribs, and I thought more dry rub was a good thing. It most definitely is NOT a good thing; the heat was so much we literally cried while eating them.
Finally, we said goodnight and wished each other a final Merry Christmas. Can't wait to see what happens for New Year's...
