With Tante Jess and ALL of the cousins in town for Thanksgiving, on top of Jess and I giving our concert, we thought the week couldn’t get fuller. Then, one by one, each of our dominos got the stomach flu.

I hate the stomach flu a lot. But watching little people get it and wondering if you’ll hold out until they’re better? Torture. Tess started, followed by Remy, Griffin, Remy again, Dave and Lilou, and finally me then Joy. It was beyond awful. We banded together and took care of each other, and the crazy distribution of illness made that work. Small boon?

It took over a week for us to all recover. We missed work, pulled dad in to sit when we had to go back, and pretty much stumbled through the following week. I knew we were back on our feet when I felt a driving urge to clean out all freezers, despite no interest in eating. Joy laughed at me, and rolled her eyes! But we both knew I organize when I’m functioning. 

We’re slowly easing into the holiday season. Dave’s parents came for the weekend – thank you! – and to meet Lilou. From the Santa Rampage to Decorating day at my parents, we holidayed our brains out. But our hearts melted when we got the remaining advent calendar gifts from Kat’s aunt in Austria. We feel so much love from Kat’s whole family towards all of our kids! Their advent calendar is one of our favorite family traditions, and the kids are beside themselves when it’s time to open the day’s package. That really feels like the holidays – our nightly moment of Christmas. 

To top it off, Dave brought home the world’s most perfect Christmas tree! The kids chased each other around the house with felt chains of jingle bells, shrieking with laughter. Lilou clapped her hands every time a lap brought them to her corner of the kitchen. I cooked dinner and found myself smiling as they whizzed by my legs. It was Rockwellian. That’s beyond rare in this house!

So we survived disaster and our immoderate holiday binging. Now? We’ll decorate that tree and settle down for a few weeks of carols, cookie baking and hopefully some snow!