The Gift that kept on Giving

Well, this was definitely a Christmas to remember, and in one quick recap... "2013: Sickest Christmas Ever".  It was tough to see how each day our family members got hit with the nastiest stomach flu!  It started on Monday when Nome and Alex arrived, and it had already hit Nome and Heath on the drive over.  Then very early Christmas morning, it got Travis, Alex and Lily, and by the end of Christmas Day, it got Nora, Grampy and Grammy.  Me, well, it's now Dec 27th and I haven't got it yet but it feels like it's just a waiting game for me, *gulp!  Hopefully not though.  It was surreal seeing how each day someone would suffer during the night and be completely wiped out / low energy, sleeping through most of the morning and watching them slowly appear in the evening but barely.  Awwww the poor family.  So, needless to say, it was a very very very low key Christmas this year, but I put myself in a bubble, sanitized as I walked around and did SO MUCH laundry in the span of two days!

So, we can laugh about it now, but the stomach flu for Christmas 2013 was definitely the gift that kept on giving.

But according to Nora, this is her quick recap... "2013: BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!" So there you have it.  Plus the girls did awesome, they had their couple hours of puking but boy did they ever bounce back quickly.

Through all this though, we still had a really wonderful time, especially watching the girls experience Christmas!   While this Christmas will definitely be memorable, these are my favourite memories from the week:

Christmas Eve Highlights:

Listening to everyone sing "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" while decorating sugar cookies for Santa 

Just before bedtime... plus story time with the whole family reading Polar Express and Night Before Christmas

Everything is set!

Christmas Day Highlights:

Polly Pocket car from us... life is so simple for them! :) 

Lily painted a picture of all the grandkids for Grammy & Grampy

The girls love love love their Build a Bears from cousin Maya!

Slowly making an appearance now and then, but barely :(

Heath's 2nd Christmas, his recap after also being super sick: 2nd best Christmas ever!

Taking the time to rest and recover!  (She bounced back so quickly!)

So, even though Christmas was low energy and not everyone was feeling super healthy at the same time, it still got us all together to sit, catch up, laugh and play.  The girls still had the best time hanging out with their family and playing our new board games and new dolls and toys.  

I thoroughly enjoyed all of Nora's reactions to everything.  I still keep in my mind the giddiness she had when we all finally got out of bed to see if Santa came.  And she was SUPER happy to see Santa had given her Disney fairy dolls and she even had overflowing excitement for Lily (who was in a bit of a daze) for her Merida doll and horse!

There it is, a memorable Christmas for sure!  But I'm ready now to get out the house! :)

The Kai's ended up doing 'take out' from us, and a few of us still got to enjoy the delicious turkey dinner!