A different sort of Christmas

For the first time in 25 years I was not in Chicago for the holidays. Chris and I decided to take turns spending Christmas with our families and this year was his turn where the plan was to go to his sister's house who lives in Indianapolis. His other sister who lives in OH was already going to be there with her husband and daughter. We spent Christmas Eve hanging out, playing darts, and eating. Both of his sisters are incredible cooks and they made a fajita bar. It was delicious.

Chris and I left to get ready for church since the entire family was going to meet up and attend the Christmas Eve service at our church. We arrived at the church 20 minutes early so we could find good seats for everyone. We were really surprised to find so many cars already there. We were even more surprised to discover church had started 45 minutes ago. This isn't the first time this has happened to us. We have a history of receiving bad or delayed information regarding our church services and since we frequently spend our weekends in Chicago, we miss announcements that are made about service times. Chris and I sat in for the final ten minutes of the service. We sang one song but I was so disappointed I couldn't even sing.

We decided to go to my old church and attend their Christmas Eve service. I was determined to hear one good sermon and since more than one Christmas carol. The problem was that we had an hour to kill. We decided to go to Starbucks only to discover it was closed. We opted for TGI Fridays to get a cup of coffee with Bailey's Irish Cream. We sat down and the place smelled of stale ciggarrette smoke and old greasy food. It was absoutely disgusting. We were sitting there for almost ten minutes before anyone acknowledged our presence. The drinks were good but the service was terrible. Thankfully this was the low of the evening.

The church service was good and when it was over we went home, popped pop corn, and watched the black and white version of Miracle on 34th Street. The evening was rescued!

Then came Christmas morning.

I woke up and started feeling queasy about thirty minutes later. I spent the rest of the morning on the couch before telling Chris I needed to go home. Chris drove me home and was wonderful spending a few hours with me before I encouraged him to go back to his sister's for dinner. The rest of Christmas has been spent making the difficult decision of which end to put on the potty. It has been a rough happy holiday for me. I'm hoping it is a 24 hour bug and I will be feeling like new tomorrow morning.

Merry Christmas!