An English Christmas

The Saturday before Christmas found us driving a few hundred miles north to Le Havre, where we boarded a ferry for a nearly six hour English Channel crossing. After being surrounded by not-the-English-language since August, we were a tad excited. Even better, we were heading to much-loved extended family—including my parents, who'd arrived in England a few days earlier.

Unfortunately, the crossing itself was somewhat inauspicious. Winds were intense that evening/night, and within moments of leaving the (calm) harbor the ferry began pitching and rolling in high waves. All of us have spent time on rocking boats and have never been seasick before, but this was a different story. William remained fine, but poor Josiah threw up once, and Jesse and I spent a few hours only holding it together when our heads were resting on the table and our eyes closed. We were thankful when we made our very late arrival to my cousin Danni's house!

Sunday was a wonderful day involving church both morning and evening, reuniting with family, and plenty of food. We thoroughly enjoyed the outdoor carol service at Holtwood Chapel on Sunday night. It's special to be at Holtwood anytime of year given the generations of Mom's family who have worshiped there, but it was especially nice to be there at Christmas.

Christmas week itself was great. Danni and Adam were amazing, over-generous hosts, the kids of course had a great time together, and we couldn't have asked for a better few days. There was baking, ice skating, crafting, movie watching, giggling, eating Advent chocolates at breakfast, gift wrapping, and much general merriment.

 

In addition to handling the craziness of a house full of guests in the busy days leading to Christmas, Danni squeezed in dental checks for all of us at her practice on Christmas Eve. What a hostess!  :)  We were happy to learn that none of us appears to have anything amiss, so hopefully we can wait until we're back home next summer to restart usual check-ups and cleanings.

Libby went first, then William:

Next came Josiah, then Grace:

It all seemed pretty standard and was going smoothly, but...then it was Jesse's turn. 

Danni had to call in her support staff for a consult. Fortunately they're a crack team.

One of many meals around the Grady table:

Christmas Eve!

And...Christmas morning! 

By 7:15 a.m., the stockings were a thing of the distant past and family gifts were well underway. 

It seems Father Christmas has a penchant for the sensible...toothpaste and math puzzles.  :)

The gifts didn't end there. After breakfast, a mad pack-up, and then a lovely Christmas morning church service, we congregated at Colin and Ann's for the balance of the day. There we enjoyed a constant rotation of gifts, fun, and food with the entire family.

Pictured (L-R): Danni, Tim, Tasha, Olivia, Ann, Grace, Josiah, Dad, Jesse, and William. 

Not pictured: Mom and Grammy (they ate in Grammy's room); Colin, Adam, Henry, and Dan (they were the other side of me); Chessie (unfortunately home unwell).

Sort of pictured: Baby Rutt. We just missed James Nathaniel's arrived on December 31st!

It was sad not to have Grandad around, but it was so special to spend Christmas day with Grammy—a first ever for me. I believe it was only Mom's third Christmas at "home" in England since getting married over 40 years ago, so being together there was even more special.

No, William's not asleep. This was the best of four photos.

Grace with her beloved Christmas capybara.

*  *  * 

Unhappy Epilogue

We all were exhausted by the end of Christmas day. Next morning, the Grady family packed up and headed to Oxford to Adam's family for Boxing Day and the weekend, leaving us holding down the fort for another 48 hours. 

Unfortunately, things suddenly went downhill fast. For one thing, both boys had picked up colds during the week and were doing pretty poorly by Friday with bad congestion, runny noses, and low grade fevers.  They also were running on fumes after a week of too little sleep. But the absolute kicker? Saturday morning we discovered that William had a bad case of head lice! Gah!! We ordinarily check both boys weekly since there seem to be a few permanent offenders at William's school, but we'd been mercifully unaffected all fall. What a week to be off our routine! We felt sick about it. 

But it gets worse. Josiah was affected too, albeit nowhere near as badly as William. And...drum roll...me too. Oh yes. I had head lice. I had it once as a 5-year-old, so I tried to tell myself that 30+ years was a good run. (Note: That self-pep talk wasn't especially helpful.) Anyway, every night that week I had spent a few hours in William's bed or with him cuddled up sharing my pillow, seeing as we weren't in our usual sleeping arrangements. Again, what a week to be off our routine; I'm never extensively hair-to-hair with him like that ordinarily! 

Treatments and hours upon hours of hair combing and cutting later, not to mention nonstop loads of laundry and masses of house cleaning, we felt satisfied that the Grady house and our own heads were purged of the offending creatures (which, for the record, don't live long at all off of warm human noggins). We also were thankful to get several reports from Oxford that everyone there was clear. Jesse was a champ working over my head, and I couldn't begrudge him the humor he found in "delousing" his wife given the amount of time he spent dealing with me! The resulting afro was epic, by the way.

In William's case, the opposite of afro was called for. Buzz cut all the way. I'll leave you here with Patient Zero's mug shots.