‘Twas the night before Christmas.. and I was hailing before the porcelain king. Translation: on Christmas Eve, I came down with the stomach flu.

Oh, it was awful. I started feeling sick when I was doing some last minute shopping. I didn’t think much of it. I just chopped it up to the stress of the holiday rush. Then when I got home, Steve told me that he also wasn’t feeling well. We thought maybe it was the tamales that we both had eaten earlier in the day, but when I called my mom to see if she, too, had gotten sick because she had also eaten them she said she was feeling fine. Within a couple hours, I was vomiting and it lasted through the night until about 5 a.m. Christmas morning. Somehow, Steve, who has a phobia of throwing up, never got sick. Go figure.

Christmas day was a day of recovering. I couldn’t eat, drink, and I tried my hardest to be merry. Opening my Coach diaper bag from my dad and my Wii from both my parents helped, a lot! But the tamales everyone was heating up and eating around me did not. Every time I got a whiff of the normally delicious smell of tamales, I was nearly running to the toilet.

Despite all that, Steel’s first Christmas was a wonderful time spent with family. He was showered with so much love.. and gifts! Grandpa Richard got him a jumper, that makes two because Grandpa Gordon also got him one. Great minds think alike! He also got pretty much an entire wardrobe and a few toys. I think Steel’s favorite, though, was the wrapping and ribbons, which, like everything else these days, went directly in his mouth. 

Most importantly though, Steel got to spend time with his grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins on both sides of the family, which is what it’s really all about. And for that, I’m so fortunate.