Christmas canceled

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were not full of family and holiday cheer because my husband and I came down with a nasty cold.

Pat and I had to cancel plans with our families.

I came down with a cold late last week. This wasn’t just a regular cold. It was a cold that started with the flu, then progressed to feeling lethargic, having absolutely no energy and just wanting to sleep. Not to mention the awful coughing that made you feel like you were going to vomit and sneezing that hurt so bad!

On Saturday morning, Christmas Eve, I called my mom to tell her we were sick. She responded by saying, “You are canceling Christmas.” I told her they could come over if that wanted to risk getting sick. (They choose not to come over as my dad is just getting over a sickness and my grandma didn’t need to catch a cold.)

Apparently our colds were contagious. I caught my cold from someone else and Pat got sick from me.

So that morning, Pat cut firewood, and I made one trip to town - to buy one last Christmas gift and a big box of tissues with lotion. That afternoon we both landed on our couches where we stayed the rest of the day. That night we watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes and went to bed early.

On Sunday, we still were not feeling any better. We both ate an orange with green tea for breakfast followed by blueberry muffins. I thought the antioxidants would help, but not really.

Then Pat got ready to head to his family Christams in Grafton, Wis., but didn’t make it. He had to call his mother and cancel.

Again, we spent the entire day at home. We watched the movie, “Where the Red Fern Grows” and then, of course, the Packers versus the Bears game.

By Monday morning, I was feeling somewhat better and went to work.

Over the weekend, Pat and I went through three boxes of tissues, a bottle of cough syrup, a bag of cough drops and some headache medicine.

Christmas presents are still at our house because no one came to visit us for fear of catching our sickness and we didn’t go anywhere, so the gifts will have to be delivered in the next few weeks.

My husband never gets sick for more than a day! So the fact that he was sick for the entire weekend and missed his family Christmas means this sickness can take you out for a few days. Even those that never get sick.

Maybe if we would have gotten a flu shot we wouldn’t have been quite as sick. But one never knows.