2017 Holiday Recap (part one)…

I know I’m a bit late in posting this, but we’ve had a lot going on!  I always say, “Better late, than never.”  So here goes…

T’was the week before Christmas when folks in our family began dropping like flies…  It actually began nine days before Christmas when our oldest grandson came down with the flu on the day following his ninth birthday party.  Within the next three days, three more family members were down for the count, including Ed.  This was not the way we’d all planned to spend the final days leading up to Christmas!

Now, Ed and I always get our flu shots, but little did we know this would be the year that the vaccine would be only ten percent effective!  The flu has been rampant in our little town, and virtually every household has had at least one case of it!

Fortunately, Ed and I were able to do one thing we’d planned [before he got sick] the week before Christmas–we decorated a gingerbread house!  We’d actually planned to do this with our daughter and granddaughter, but, unfortunately, they had to bow out due to illness.

Decorating a gingerbread house with Ed was quite an experience.  It took us no less than five hours to complete our project, but we were both satisfied with the finished results.

Notice that little yellow window on the side?  Ed rolled out yellow gumdrops to make those panes.  Notice the green door and Christmas tree on the front of the house?  He carefully measured, rolled, and cut the fondant for those, too.  Do you see those carefully placed candies all over the gingerbread house?  Ed actually used surgical hemostats to put them into place, while I spread and piped white frosting on the house.  Only someone who’s also worked in the medical profession (and has fingers too large to hold onto the candy), would try to hold onto candy with hemostats.  I tried it, and the candy shot halfway across the kitchen!

The gingerbread house was a fun project, and I’d definitely like to try it again, sometime.  My question is, What do I do with this house now that Christmas is over?  I’d like to eat some of it, but I’m afraid I’d break a tooth!  Ours is still sitting in the kitchen…

Following the construction of our gingerbread house, on Wednesday before Christmas, poor Ed spent the next four days hovering over a vaporizer, taking Mucinex D and antibiotics.  Similar scenarios were taking place in two other households of our family.  It was not a fun time!

Whether or not we’d be able to actually celebrate our family Christmas on the actual day remained uncertain until Christmas Eve.  By then, some still had residual effects of their colds/flu, but none were running fever.  Almost everyone had finished taking their medications.

It turned out, other than the initial four who got sick, the rest of the family stayed well.  It looked like we might be able to celebrate Christmas after all.  Thank goodness I’d prepared some of the food [and froze it] ahead of time!  (to be continued…)