This Christmas was many months in the making.  We told my parents way back in September that their Christmas presents from their kids this year were plane tickets to Boise for Christmas.  Every person in the family wrote them a letter telling them why they should come for Christmas.  We planned and re-planned and agonized over where my parents would stay for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning  and when to see extended family and when to move from staying at one house to another so that they would get to be with everyone “equally”.  The logistics for our perfect plan would impress the most seasoned general or wedding planner.  I should say here that when I say “we” I do not mean Rock and I.  He would want everyone to know he had no part in our ridiculous planning and apportioning.  The “we” was all the women in the family.  Of course. 

December 17th finally arrived and my parents flew in right on schedule.  For several days things went as planned.  Grandma and Grandpa helped us open our Christmas books, we got some Christmas shopping done and made yummy gingersnap cookies.

And then…. the flu hit.  First it was Levi, and then Levi and Cade and then Levi, Cade and Libby and then Reagan and on down the line till within a few days, eleven people were sick.  One more got it after Christmas.  I don’t know if you’ve ever been sick at Christmas, but it’s bad enough when it’s just you and your kids and you’re not hosting a million people.  This time we, and those million people got sick!  Needless to say, the best laid plans got changed, scheduled events were postponed or canceled all together and our Christmas kind of fell apart.  We sat around looking like this the week of Christmas:

Twas the week before Christmas and all through the house every creature was coughing, including the mouse.  Luckily my kids were mostly past the worst by Christmas and it was me laying around feeling miserable.  We did manage to do the Nativity on Christmas Eve.  Though our last few carols sung by the tree turned into a chorus of hacking instead of a chorus of angels.

Mary and Joseph of equal size.  Very cute.

It’s blurry, but I love this one…

Christmas Eve Presents:

My nephews, so cute in their matching jammies!!!  The one on the right was the sickest of us all.  Flu AND strep throat.  Poor kid.

Blankets and Jammies

Grandma reading The Night Before Christmas before the kids went to bed.  She could have done it from memory, as she did when I was growing up, but my kids like the pictures.

I have NEVER gone to bed early on Christmas Eve, but I did this year.  Thank goodness my mom was there to help with the last minute preparations.

Christmas Morning:

Waiting to run upstairs to see what Santa brought them.

A foosball table!!!

It came with this note:

I was feeling so crummy and we had so many people opening presents this year that I didn’t get many pictures, but there are a few that are worth posting.

Reagan locked himself in his bedroom for two days to sew this stuffed pig for Liberty.  He did not even use a pattern!  Pretty good for a kid who took 6 weeks of Home Ec!!

This one of Levi is pretty funny.  He was so excited he dropped the Pokémon cards!

The Master of Ceremonies

The boys favorite gift this year was Minecraft.  Santa set up the game on their computers and left them a note in their stockings.   This is what Levi wrote in his journal about Christmas morning.

I guess it’s good to know that if Santa ever needs to quit his day job, he can go work for Microsoft.  They always need good programmers.

Reading their Minecraft handbooks.  

They played this computerized lego game the entire Christmas break and there was NO FIGHTING.  It was wonderful.  Especially since I was trying to recover from the flu.

This Christmas went so awry that Cade even forgot to give his biggest Christmas gift to the family.  He worked the whole month of December to learn a really hard Christmas song and he kept it a secret!  (Benefits of having a digital piano).  Finally a few days after Christmas he remembered to play it for us all.  The video is pretty long, so here is just a clip.  Keep in mind he hadn’t practiced for about a week prior to this because he’d been sick.

Cade did a great job and we are all so impressed at his talent!  It was a wonderful surprise.  If you want to hear the professionals do the whole song, click here:  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P9xxJ4V7no

I thought I was just being funny to call this blog post the Flu Epidemic, but my mom told me yesterday that Idaho and Utah literally reached epidemic flu numbers this Christmas.  Wow.  So glad we could participate in such a historic event.  Hope we never have to again!