Holiday Memories

Every family has their own Christmas traditions. When our kids were young we would head out after dinner on Christmas Eve to drive around and check out the local Christmas decorations. Afterward we would come back home where the children would be allowed to open the 1 gift under the tree from us, to make room for the hefty haul that Santa would be leaving for them later that night. But anyway, I have this one Christmas Eve that I will NEVER forget, and I am certain that my children remember it as much as I do.....

We cut the Christmas Ham that night since I was cooking a turkey on Christmas Day. And the kids wanted me to make up some macaroni and cheese for them (sound familiar to anybody? Chelsea maybe...HAHA. I have one niece who's diet revolves around mac and cheese, and come to think of it, my kids were right about her age when this fateful night occurred.) Anyway, the kids finished up with their dinner and ran off to go bundle up for our Christmas Eve ride. I was in the middle of putting the leftovers away, and turned my back for just a split second. My dog Scotty took full advantage of my inattention and leapt up on one of the kitchen chairs and swallowed a huge helping of the mac and cheese almost whole. Luckily he did not get the ham...he might have been held in grave disfavor if he had eaten all of the Christmas ham. So, I scolded the dog, shooed him down off of the chair, and finished cleaning up the kitchen.

For some reason, as we left the house somebody (I don't recall who it was, but it was most likely my husband) decided that of course the dogs would enjoy viewing some cheery holiday decorations to put them in the Christmas spirit....haha. So we threw Scotty and Scarlet into our mini-van alongside of the children and off we went. We made it maybe half a mile....possibly less....when Scotty got sick and vomited macaroni and cheese all over the place. The children were screaming, mac and cheese was everywhere, and the dogs were barking and scared. We never really saw the local decor that year. We immediately headed home, and hubby and I spent the better part of the rest of that Christmas Eve cleaning out the van. And if I haven't grossed you out enough yet, I also recall having to scrape up the worst of the mess with a spatula.....YUCK! That spatula went into the trash after that. Noone in the family could bring themselves to eat mac and cheese for a really really REALLY long time after that. The children were traumatized, we were traumatized, and the dogs were traumatized. That might actually have been the last year that we indulged in that little tradition. But even if we did go on our decoration spotting trips after that year, I am absolutely certain that we never took the dogs with us again....Ha!