It came, just the same...

Well, this has been an "interesting" Christmas. As I wrote in my last post, first my sister & then her boyfriend came down with the stomach flu, which meant they could not come from the city to my parents' for Christmas Eve -- the first time ever that we have not all been together as a family on Christmas Eve, and the first time that we haven't opened our presents on Christmas Eve either. Thankfully, the former neighbours' daughter & her boyfriend came over for dinner & stayed to play cards, so the evening didn't seem quite so empty & bizarre.

My sister said that so long as her boyfriend was feeling better enough to be left alone, she would come out the next day for Christmas dinner. That morning, the phone rang: her car wouldn't start!! (It's a beat up old thing & I'm amazed it still runs at all.) So my dad & dh wound up driving into the city to get her. Neighbours' daughter & her boyfriend came over again & we had one of my dad's famous brunches, then opened our stockings & then finally the rest of the presents (backwards from how it usually goes). And then had our turkey dinner. So, as I said to dh, thinking of the line from the Grinch, "Christmas came, just the same." Well, not exactly the same, but it came & it wound up being allright in the end, albeit definitely different!

Sis knows what a stickler I am for tradition, & on Christmas Eve she called me to say that she wanted to make it perfectly clear that just because we were doing this once did not mean that Christmas Eve had to be this way forever after. I cracked up & said that was just fine with me! lol She left on Boxing Day (took the one bus of the day back into the city) but will probably return tomorrow or Saturday (depending on the car status, etc.).

Thankfully, no sign of the stomach flu here yet (knocking wood & crossing fingers), but I do have a cold. The morning after we got here, I got a tickle/scratch in my throat, which yesterday turned into a stuffy head & drippy nose. I barely got any sleep last night. Went to the drugstore today to stock up on some cold pills, but they haven't helped much yet. Oh well, maybe this way it will have worked its way out of my system by the time we have to fly again. At any rate, it's definitely preferable to the stomach flu!

More later...