It just wouldn't be Christmas if...

I was supposed to go out to dinner last Thursday with my parents and sister to celebrate Mom's birthday. DS2 was sick, though, all snotty and clingy and not able to be take out of the house, so I told everyone I'd have to bail, using sick baby as my reason. "Yeah, it wouldn't be Christmas if someone wasn't sick," Nic said. For once, I wish she could have been wrong. The baby was fine, he slept a lot, but it meant that DH couldn't do any of the errands he has scheduled for the day, and he did them after I got home. Early Friday morning, I realized that we were not out of the woods yet. My stomach was letting me know that my plans for the day (this cool cooking thing with Nic, the final gift wrapping, and dinner out with the in-laws) was not an option. My retching was sufficiently loud to wake DH, and he called Nic (at a decent hour, of course) to let her know that I was not going to be in any condition, much less have any desire, to deal with food. I only passed out once or twice(that's a good day for me, since I have trouble staying conscious when I heave violently) and by mid-afternoon was able to progress from juice to graham crackers. The rest of the family went out to the steakhouse as planned, and they decided to take their chances with being in the room with me to exchange gifts. And life was good... ...until 3:22 Saturday morning. That's when I awoke to the sound of DH getting sick. His bout didn't last as long as mine did, and he felt OK enough to stay alone, allowing the kids and me to go to my Nanna's house as planned. It did spark some interesting conversation, though, about the illnesses of Christmas past. "This wasn't as bad as that Martian death flu," I said, "Remember that one?" "Oh, yeah, in '99" he replied, "That's the sickest I can ever remember being." That one had hit all of us together, more or less- Nic and I both started feeling sick at work on a Monday afternoon the week of Christmas, and were bedridden by dinnertime. DH was suffering alongside me within 4 hours, and MrNic was sick a day or so later. Needless to say, none of us was willing to face the huevos rancheros at Christmas brunch. "Two years ago was that nasty cold," he reminded me. That was the illness that provided the most pathetic Kodak moment in our family's history- my feverish self curled up on the couch nursing a feverish DS2, with DS1 (also feverish) slumped sleepily on my other side. It was the day of DD's Chistmas program; it was the only day during that week when she was well enough to go to school. Somehow, DH dodged that one completely. "I wasn't really sick in '02," I told him. "No, just pregnant," he replied. "You were retaining so much water, no one wanted to let you be on your feet for more than 10 minutes at a time." "One of the kids was fighting something, though," I remembered. "I served as a pillow whenever I sat down on the couch." Now we've gone almost 72 hours with everyone's systems being stable, and I consider it a Christmas miracle!