Christmas Traditions

Like most families, we are trying to create some memories for our kids with some fun Christmas traditions. Wes and I both tend to be spontaneous and prefer to do what works last minute rather than plan ahead and make a big ordeal about activities. Having young kids has taught us that if you over plan you are only setting yourself up for disappointment. It usually goes down best when it is last minute. One day last week after the kids got home from school, they were bored and the weather was nice so I called Wes, told him to go home by way of Scottsdale and meet us with a pizza at the Railroad Park. We had a great time riding the train and seeing Christmas lights. If we had planned to do that weeks ahead, it would have rained or the one of the kids would've been sick. Never fails.

There is one tradition that seems to keep creeping it's way into our Christmas every year that I wish would stop. For the past two years, the kids have come down with stomach flu the last day of before Christmas break. This year was no different. Wes and I went to lunch for what we joked was "the company party" and just happen to leave our phones in the car. When we got back to the car we both had several missed calls from the school which is always a bit anxiety producing. Apparently Dylan walked up to his teacher's desk and said, "My belly doesn't feel..... " followed by projectile vomiting. Luckily, his teacher was able to jump to avoid the majority of the chocolate milk and pizza he had for lunch. Poor guy is now that kid who puked all over the class room. I shouldn't have worried about the stigma though, because it turned out to be quite the opposite. Two neighbor girls who are in his class came to the door to tell me to thank DB because they got to go out for a really long extra recess while they cleaned up the puke. Nice. He's a hero.

Despite our best efforts, we were unable to contain the flu. Just when we thought we were in the clear, Jake and Sophie began to puke within minutes of each other last night. It went on all night. Jake pukes, we get him cleaned up and we all just fall back to sleep, then Sophie pukes and the cycle repeats- Jake, Sophie, Jake, Sophie etc. If it wasn't so sad, it would have been funny. Needless to say, we are a little tired today. The puking has stopped, the house smells of bleach, and my high aspirations of passing out homemade neighbor treats has gone out the window. "Merry Christmas - here's some stomach flu laced cookies!"

By the way, if my cheap boss (also doubles as my husband) thinks that the whole puking drama has distracted me so much that I forgot about the lack of a Christmas bonus at our "Christmas party," he would be mistaken.