Christmas Memories

I do hope you all had a great Christmas, or whatever holiday you celebrate at this time of the year. Hope it was better than mine anyway. It was a bit of a disaster for several reasons. The main one was that both my son and I were sick. On Christmas Day, we both managed to eat some of the celebration roast turkey and all that goes with it. After that I threw up and he went to bed and slept till the next day.

I had been wondering why I’d been feeling so exhausted trying to get everything ready for a family Christmas. It was hard work but I’d done it so many times before without getting so tired. On the 23rd, when my daughter and granddaughter were due to arrive, my last chore was to vacuum the bedrooms after which I literally collapsed.

I’d had a cough for a week or so as well, and this got worse, plus I felt like I was aching all over – you know what fluey cold is like. Anyway, now I had help from my daughter and she ended up shouldering most of the catering, although I battled on as much as possible. And I left her on her own during the evenings as I just had to get myself to bed and try to relax.

On Christmas morning hubby fetched my son and his girlfriend who live nearly an hour’s drive away, near where my last house is. Then we discovered that he wasn’t well either. But at least we were all together for a while. They stayed the night and went home the next day.

The other two left today, a day earlier than planned, and I’m feeling a bit low, so I decided I must try to find some good things to remember about it all. So here we go:

• My children and I got together for the first time for quite a while
• Everyone seemed to get presents they were happy with.
• Eryn was thrilled with her Wii, to which lots of family members had contributed
• On Boxing Day, we found a park with two witches’ hats where we could sit in a café drinking hot coffee and watch young Eryn having the time of her life, then go and walk on the sandy beach before we had to run back to the car to escape a shower. It was exhilarating and good to be out of the house, even if I did crash out afterwards.
• Yesterday we enjoyed the children watching Jack and the Beanstalk as much as watching the pantomime itself.
• Finally, since I had no appetite for the Christmas treats, I can take my belt in a notch instead of having to let it out and go on a crash diet just to get back to normal.