This is a Full-Blown, Four-Alarm Holiday Emergency Here....

Clark: Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here.


Every Christmas I feel like this. That particular line from Christmas Vacation runs through my mind a lot during the first couple weeks of December. Usually it’s as I’m surveying the wreck that my house becomes during those weeks leading up to our church Christmas program. This year I think we’ve reached an all time high of crap strung in every room of our home. For the last few days it has resembled the way their house looked after the squirrel and Snot, the dog got finished with it. Except thankfully my china hutch is still safely secured to the buffet and all of my china is still in one piece. That particular scene of the movie makes me cringe every time I watch it. Seriously, can you imagine a dog tearing through your house and jumping on your china hutch?

We are in the middle of a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency…..We are trying to have a live nativity outside our church Sunday evening. We are short 4 costumes, 2 Shepherd’s and 2 Angels….I thought I could sew them with my mom’s help. In our family room we have pattern pieces and material strung from one end of it to the other. But to even get to our family room you would have to walk through our kitchen. Which happens to have a sheet laid out on the floor with 3 enormous angel wings in various stages of being painted and glittered. After cutting out two of the Shepherd’s costumes I discovered I had done it wrong. Back to Joann’s I went to get more material Tuesday evening. Mom was supposed to be over tonight to help because I can’t for the life of me understand how the sleeve instructions work…my mind can not fathom how step 2 turns into step 3. That plan got put on hold because yesterday morning Cade woke up at 3 am with his stomach hurting, Mom is so sensitive to stomach virus’ that I don’t want her to come over for fear she would catch it. So we were up rocking in the wee morning hours waiting on the puking to begin. You know that it’s coming, it’s just a matter of when it decides to start. Finally at 4:30 am I looked at Jay, told him he was the one staying home with Cade, and I was going back to bed to get a couple more hours sleep. Not that Jay minded staying home, but he was concerned about getting the FFA float done for the parade Saturday evening. I told him the 5 real estate loans we need to close before the end of the year and the fact I would like to take a few days off around Christmas to spend with him and Cade trump a float. In looking back at the days I’ve had off from work, there have only been two that were used for something other than baby/adoption stuff. One was to go on Cade’s field trip, the other was to run errands for our church and The Icebox. I would really like to have one day away from work this year that does not involve tears, nervous stomach or being stuck in the butt with a needle. Really, is that too much to ask?....Now that I say that, I’ll step on a rusty nail my first day off and have to update my almost 20 year old tetnus shot…

Last night though, I think we were able to move the alarm down from a four to a two or three. The wind chill Sunday night is going to be in the single digits with 30 + mile an hour winds. I think we are going to postpone the live Nativity. I know everyone loves to see a Nativity…but no one wants to watch it if they are freezing their extremities off. I also think we will be able to borrow the missing costume pieces from another church. I’ll still have mom help me finish the ones I’ve started because we do need them, it just doesn’t have to be right now.

I did mention didn’t I that there are 5 real estate loans we need to close? Just a little helpful hint from a loan person. You all can file this away in your brains and hopefully reflect on it if your ever need it…December 31 comes at the same time every year. Some years it does come a little faster than we’d like, but it shouldn’t surprise us. That is why God created 11 other months to make those purchases to help with your taxes. Please, don’t make me close a loan the last two weeks of December because it’s an emergency for you. I will be nice and I will do it because that’s the way I am – but I won’t like it!!! Seriously, if these customers only knew that I was up to my armpits in glitter and gold paint at home, they might understand when I look at them after they tell me they needed this yesterday…..

So yes, we are experiencing our own a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. Oh, every year I have dreams of the holidays going by slowly while I sit in our recliner by the tree sipping hot chocolate and watching all of the movies I’ve DVR’d on the Hallmark Channel….Instead of watching them at 3 am in the morning because I have insomnia because my brain is back and forth between figuring out how to attach a sleeve to the customer that I should’ve mailed papers to the day before but I forgot. Then I think how boring! Would that really be the holidays for me? Could I really sit by and do nothing with our church program? Absolutely not…..So instead Jay and I laugh about how no one is walking out on our version of a fun old-fashioned family Christmas – we are both in it together (since he was the one who suggested the live Nativity at a board meeting). Then we go back to sewing, painting and glittering and love every minute of it.