The Thanksgiving That Never Was

Let me clarify something right away. We did have Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving.

This sad little tale of my holiday weekend gone horribly wrong starts a couple of days before. And after I write this post my pity party must end. It just has to. I'm tired of feeling blue.

As I sit here typing, I'm on day 3 of a nasty cough and sore throat. Boo hoo for me.

A week ago, Little H threw up and had one "soupy" diaper. (Sorry for the visual.) He was totally fine after that. Two days later, my sweet Lily woke around 5 a.m. throwing up. She threw up about every half hour.  Poor thing!! I had to spend the day with her in bed. There was no way around it. I was fully immersed in the germs; but my little girl was in bad shape. She needed her Momma.

Well, the flu hit the Bauer house in full force. We all had some version of it, Andy coming down with it Saturday morning and getting the worst of it. By Saturday, I was taking care of Andy but I started to have this scratchy little cough. Here I am, 3 days later, and if I'm very still I tend not to cough.

So we've had the worst week. We've been stuck inside with 2 little kids feeling like crap. It's been hard; but the sad part is the timing.

The day Lily came down with the flu, my sister flew in from Colorado. I've seen her ONCE in the past week. Fortunately she's here for another week and a half. But wait, it gets even sadder!

Finally, I was going to host a real Thanksgiving dinner at MY house. The girl that was always asked to bring rolls and drink (the only food items that didn't actually have to be cooked) was getting to host Thanksgiving. My parents, Andy's parent, and both our sisters would celebrate with us and the kids. How festive, how cozy, how happy.

Because Lily had been so sick, my family was wary of coming over to our house and catching the flu. We tried to reschedule with everyone, but the way it worked out left us having to do 2 dinners. We would do Thanksgiving with my parents and sister on Sunday and since my house had been fully contaminated, Andy's parents offered to let us go over there on Thursday.

Andy's parents braved the possibility of getting sick and had us over anyway. Love them! But.............they all came down with flu on Saturday!! I'm so thankful for them because otherwise we would have been alone on Thanksgiving. That's too sad to even think about.

My dream of hosting Thanksgiving hadn't quite been dashed, though. I still had Sunday. My family was coming over to my house. That was plan B. By Sunday though, Andy still hadn't emerged from the his flu induced coma and I was working on hacking up one of my lungs. So what is Plan C? Plan C was my sweet family bringing us leftovers.

So my dream of hosting the big dinner had officially been dashed and I've had zero leftovers. I've had no appetite to eat and I think the sight of stuffing and turkey just reminds me of the the Thanksgiving that never was. I told you I'm having a pity party!!

And yet, I'm not done. There was more disappointment to come. Every year, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we go the tree farm with friends to cut down our Christmas tree. Last year, Andy had to work so we couldn't go with our friends. We went on another day with just our family of four. We still had a nice time even though it wasn't quite the same. This year, Andy took the day off so we wouldn't miss it again. Seeing as he had  the shakes and a fever, we knew we couldn't go. Plan B was to go tomorrow with the fam and cut down our tree. It looks like that won't be happening either.

We are............this is hard for me to say...........give me a minute............going to a tree lot! There. I said it! I'm so sad. I know it's not the worst thing in the world. It's just not what we do. I could dwell on this a little longer; but it will only make me delve deeper into my pit of despair.

Talk about things not going your way. I suppose I could handle all this a little better if I didn't feel so crappy. You know how when you are sick and emotional it just makes everything seem worse? I'm now convinced that there is a black cloud hanging over my future Christmas holiday. That's silly, I know. I'm just feeling very Eeyoreish.

Honestly, trying to think of things to be thankful for has been really hard.

I have this really cute banner I made on my Cricut for Thanksgiving. It simply says, 'Be Thankful'. It keeps staring at me and reminding me that "In everything, give thanks." Whether I want to or not. Because no matter what my circumstances are or how I'm feeling, God is good. All the time. So here goes:

Day 21: Sweet Potatoes. My mom sent some over since I missed them at dinner. They are my favorite part of dinner.
Day 22: That we weren't alone on Thanksgiving. We got to spend it with family, even though we made them terribly ill:(
Day 23: Cyber Monday because I do not do Black Friday.
Day 24: Through all of the illness, Henry has been A OK. I am truly thankful for his health. He's a strong little guy.
Day 25: Christmas music. It lifts the spirit.
Day 26: My kids at dinner tonight. They are so stinkin' cute!

Hopefully, I've got this all out of my system. If anyone took the time to read the whole post, thanks. Maybe you can relate to having a really bad day, week, month or maybe even year! Here's to a better week, getting better, some actual sister time, and looking for things to be thankful for.