At least we made it to one function together in 2017

Happy New Year!

The entire family has been sick on and off since Thanksgiving. You know how it goes. One kid brings some vile germ into the house and it makes the rounds and by the time the last person recovers someone else brings something new into the house and the damn cycle happens all over again.

Why this isn't a factor in family planning is beyond me. The question isn't "Do I really want another baby?" it's "Do I really want another head cold?"

People — mostly my family, neighbors and close circle of friends — have started recoiling when they see us. They act like we walk around licking random people's hands or grocery shop carts or just lack hygiene in general.

"Again??" they ask. Incredulous. While they sneeze and snivel into their own little tissues.

"Have you heard of hand sanitizer?" a fellow mom asked. Why no! What's that? Is that something I smoke after I've let the children run their toothbrushes along the trays at the food court?

Give me a break. The two older boys are exposed to school germs. Chuck and I are both exposed to office germs. Families and friends have germs. Because we don't live in a bubble, there are all the germs around town. At after school sports. Movie theaters. ATM machines. The gas pump. Just one wrong encounter with a germ and bam, we're on the ride again.

And what a lackluster ride. Chuck and I both had the week after Christmas off. We slept together — in the same bed — once in 11 days. One.Time. He was either on the couch with a cold or I was in the bed with the puke bug or we were tending to a child's vomit pan and switching shifts, like zombies in the night.

The only holiday event we made it to, as a family, was Christmas Day at my aunt and uncle's house.

Aunt Candice and Uncle Dick bought and refurbished an old barn in a remote Connecticut town and they were hot to show off their handy work. It was nice, yes but we had to swear under oath we weren't harboring any germs before they'd let us into the house.

WE AREN'T SICK WE PROMISE.

Ah, the barn-house. Sounds delightful doesn't it? It wasn't.

It was a long, narrow rectangle with a living room at one end, a kitchen in the middle, and another living room at the other end; each living room had a tree bearing gifts. If you wanted to talk to someone who was in the other living room you had to make your way through the kitchen, where Candice and her sister were cooking, and through the crowd of people clumped up in the narrow halls.

We have young children. Other people had young children. The knee-height children navigated the living room - kitchen - living room walk like it was a racetrack, while the adults bottle-necked and called to each other:

"Have you seen Cam?"

"No, but Bobby just went that way. No, wait, he's coming back around."

I should also mention that Candice and Dick like lighting for ambiance and not actually for seeing. There were lots of pretty glass domes hanging from the ceilings lit with .05 watt bulbs.

After a few drinks it became more of:

"Hey, have you seen Cam?"

"No, but the vodka is on that table, I think. Or is that the turkey? God I hope it's the turkey. It's eight o'clock!"

Candice was stressed because people kept bumping into her. Inebriated people started walking into walls, claiming they thought they were doors. Candice's sister burned the sweet potatoes. Dinner was fast and could barely be seen, even with added candlelight.

Then, gift unwrapping. No one knew which living room to stand in; neither could accommodate everyone. People called down the hall, "Is my gift for Uncle Fred in there? Because Uncle Fred is in here."

That turned into, "Can you just open Uncle Fred's present and hold it up so he can see it?"

Someone from each living room was nominated to be the gift holder upper, a la Vanna White. Again, the lack of lighting was an issue.

"What the hell is that? Is that a fishing line? Uncle Fred doesn't want that."

In the end, gift unwrapping was abandoned for more drinks. People went home with wrong presents (alcohol + dim lights + who knows where the receiver is =  random gifts hastily shoved into shopping bags).

We made a speedy exit at 10 p.m. Even though we declined leftovers, we ended up with someone's aluminum foil-wrapped turkey leg by our gas pedal. We took home two gifts we brought, plus a cat calendar, but at least we had the right children.

Riiight. I wouldn't have wanted to leave them behind. They had so much more to give us. That night, in fact.

Cam barfed on the ride home.

And tonight, Junior finished barfing around 6 p.m. We haven't left the house much all week. We haven't brought the gifts in from the car. Tomorrow morning, when Chuck goes back to work he'll have gone through three boxes of tissues, held three puke pans, not gotten any loving ... and we still won't know who the hell the calendar or turkey leg belonged to.

And we'll be walking into a brand new year of germs.

Hold me.*

*It's fine. I know you don't really want to because, you know, you'll probably catch something.