My intentions were good....

I must be very careful what I say in this post. I know my post-Christmas spirit will sound a little Scrooge-like, but in order to vent properly things must be said. Even if my attitude is that of a child's right now. I'll get over it, but right now I just want to say what I need to say.

My intentions were very good this Christmas. Although I felt very disorganized and preoccupied with other things, I thought Christmas Day would be wonderful. I know things will never be absolutely perfect, but I wanted it to be as close as possible. Don't ask me what I was thinking when I agreed to this, (maybe I had one too many swigs of eggnog) but we decided to have BOTH families over at the SAME time. Normally we do stuff all the time together, so I didn't think it would be a big deal, I guess. But, twenty people piled up under one roof in a house that's not even quite 1800 square feet and the excitement of Christmas all around--it was a headache waiting to happen.

So, I pulled out my grandmother's Christmas dishes, nice glasses, had three tables set perfectly. We decided not to go with the traditional Christmas dinner this year, instead choosing to cook steak on the grill. I should've know that was chaos waiting to happen. Especially on a rainy day. But, I was trying to cut down on the chaos by having the tables already set so that everyone could sit down and THEN the food could be served. Apparently nobody got that memo. Before I even realized what was happening everyone was crowding the kitchen grabbing and piling. Some were going back for seconds before others had a chance to eat a first time. Then one of the children were sitting at the bar in the kitchen eating off my grandmother's china. There was a reason there was no china at that spot. No children allowed to eat off of plates that are no longer made and belonged to my grandmother. Especially sitting high at the counter with concrete below. So, I just had to try to let it go.

As my mother and I sat down to eat, we had taken about two bites of our food when my mom's phone rings. My dad had just left from my house to take my grandfather back to the nursing home where he lives, when my grandfather had a stroke. Literally as he was walking in, it was happening. The nurses told my dad to take him straight to the hospital immediately. Of course, that ruined Christmas lunch even more. My mom was a wreck. Although, I must fill you in on what happened BEFORE my parents even got to my house....

My parents have 3 dogs. I think they must have one dog for each child they have, because none of us live at home anymore and they treat these dogs as though they are humans. Well, the newest of the bunch, a big mutt named Bo, somehow got badly cut when he went out that morning. He's still a bit of a puppy so he's always getting into things he shouldn't. Well, he was cut so bad that they had to take him to the emergency vet and once there they had to sedate him and stitch him up and then keep him the rest of the day and overnight. So, my mother was already down and upset when she got to my house. Then the whole thing happens with my grandfather, which is her dad. And because my grandmother died on Mother's Day several years ago, we don't want anything too traumatic happening on any other major holidays.

After my mother left to go to the hospital, between the chaos in my house and the news of my grandfather, I had to shut myself in my bathroom and have a good cry for about ten minutes. I was tempted to shut myself in there until the presents were opened and everyone was gone, but I knew that would be rude. So after a good cry I made myself face the madness again. I must say I was very relieved when everyone left that night.

So then we decided to go shopping Friday. Yes, I know. What were we thinking? I just wanted to get out of the mess in my house that I'm STILL cleaning up today and just spend some Christmas money. I get nervous in big crowds, and a big crowd it was. Then we had a stroller and a motor-mouth to deal with in the big crowds. Then we left only to get stuck in the power outage on County Line Road, with no traffic lights working and about to run out of gas. Chad was almost on panic-mode because we couldn't get around the traffic any way we tried and we were idling in traffic on fumes.

So, after all this Christmas excitement, I never thought I'd say this, but I am Christmased out!!! I don't think I'll ever recover. Although I am very blessed to have a family that stresses me out and my kids had a wonderful Christmas. Brennan had so much fun this year and got lots of stuff he didn't need. We went to Christmas Eve service at church, which was nice quiet time, and a chance to slow down and focus on the real reason we have Christmas at all.