We had spent the two days before Christmas at Charlie's parents house. His mom had been sick for days with that horrible stomach flu that was going around. I just prayed no one in our house would get it. At about 5 pm that night, Laci was on the couch and clearly didn't feel well. After discussing not going to church, she said she felt well enough to go. She had her new doll dressed up for church and needed to go show her off. At about 1:30 a.m., Laci cried out for me and got sick. I felt so bad as she was brushing her teeth after throwing up saying "I don't want to be sick on Christmas!!!" It broke my heart. As any mother does, I jumped in bed to sleep with her and make her feel better. She didn't sleep well the rest of the night and constantly cried out for me. At 7, I heard Calvin and got up.
As I walked out of her room, I noticed it was pretty cold. I checked the themostat and it said it was 60 degrees. Our furnace was broken! On Christmas morning. Charlie and I are not good at these situations and started freaking out. We both stood next to the furnace without any idea of what we should do. We called the furnace company and they said they would call us back but they could come look at it today. We smelled gas but assumed that it was from the broken furnace. But I am scared of gas and after the explosions at Richmond Hill, I wasn't taking any chances. We called the gas company and they said they would send someone out and we should leave the house. So now it is Christmas morning, Laci is sleeping and sick, Calvin is happy watching Dora, we have no heat and were told to leave the house. We went to the neighborhood clubhouse so Charlie could get his run in (1486 days and counting!). It was the saddest thing ever to wake your child up on Christmas morning and walk right by their presents from Santa to leave the house.
Sidenote - I mentioned before doing things differently from the way I did it growing up - My Santa didn't wrap his gifts and we always played with our Santa toys and stocking gifts before our parents woke up. My kids Santa wraps his gifts and we all go down together to open presents.
The gas company came within 20 minutes and the kids and I left to go let him in. He was very nice and gave the house the All Clear. Whew... one problem solved. He also looked at the furnace and said that it was probably just a broken ignitor, an easy fix. We turned on the gas fireplace.
Charlie came home and we had our Christmas morning... a little later than planned but it was still only 8:30. The excitement of the morning kept Laci going. We played with the stocking toys, Santa's gifts and opened all the presents. Calvin actually skipped 4 of his gifts but eventually found them later that afternoon. But by 10:30, she was sick again. She threw up and was back on the couch. It was so sad to see her pile of new toys and see her stuck on the couch. Fortunately, Santa came through and she could watch her new DVD of Annie.
At 11:30, the furnace repairman came and it was an easy fix. I am so thankful for people who volunteer to work on Christmas Day. He lived nearby so we were the first service call. We had heat again. Two problems solved.
I planned a supereasy Christmas dinner - all from Omaha Steaks. This is breaking tradition and is not the turkey dinner I grew up with. It was awesome. I just had to pop the twice baked potatoes and steak in the oven. I cooked carrots. I got out the pineapple and blueberries (one of our new traditions is that everyone gets their favorite out of season fruit for Christmas. Calvin's is blueberries, Charlie's is pineapple.) Bam Christmas dinner was done. After the crazy morning, I didn't bother with getting out the good china like I planned. Laci didn't eat anything. Calvin had chicken nuggets. It was a great Christmas dinner.
By 2:00 Laci was feeling better and back to her regular self. Third problem solved.
Did I mention a blizzard was predicted for Wednesday. The day we were planning to drive to my sister's to celebrate with my family? Since the heat was back on and Laci was feeling better, we decided to go to her house on Tuesday night and miss the storm and come home Thursday as originally planned. The storm didn't turn out to be as bad as predicted and we got home fine on Thursday. Whew.... fourth problem solved. Christmas really was a perfect day!
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