Per usual, nothing is calm and normal when it comes to life in the Anthony household. We’ve had our fair share of sick holidays, (in fact you may or may not remember our crazy sick Christmas two years ago which I blogged about here), but we’ve always pushed through, had made the most of it and ended up with a pretty awesome time anyway.

However, I think this year tops the cake. A week before Christmas my dear poor mama got the flu, so bad in fact that my dad had to take her to the ER. Of course it’s impossible for just one person to get sick in a big family, and over the next few days the domino effect took place and our house because the sick house of the neighborhood. It was a pretty nasty flu that at the very least drained you of all energy for a number of days and for most family members drained you of energy while throwing you a mix of rough cold and stomach bug symptoms.

Normally in the days leading up to Christmas we are busy cleaning our house and preparing for Christmas Eve (the day we finally blast Christmas music in our house and decorate our entire house in one day), but with everyone in bed sick, nothing got done. On Dec. 23rd, my mom and I looked around our tissue-strewn floors, soup-bowls-on-the-counters-and-table kitchen, surfaces-still-quite-messy living room, and many-presents-still-unwrapped bedroom and realized that there was no way we were going to get everything ready in one day. Especially since half the family members were still on couches not able to help with anything.

And so we introduced Project Christmas Delay. We pushed the calendar back a day in our house and decided that today was really the 22nd of December (not the 23rd), giving us one more day before Christmas Eve and two more days before Christmas morning. And you no what? We really managed to deceive ourselves!

We woke up on December 25th and it felt like Christmas Eve, we blasted Amy Grant and Veggie Tales Christmas music, we decorated our now (mostly) clean house and ended the evening with our traditional Chinese Christmas Eve feast. It was so funny to go on Facebook that night and see everyone’s posts about Christmas morning, because although we knew it really was Christmas Day for the rest of the world, it completely and utterly felt like the night before Christmas in our house.

Our Christmas morning was delightful and fun and kinda crazy (just like it always is) and Project Christmas Delay was a success! 🙂

I hope you all had a very merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!! 🙂

-Mary Kate