The season

Lyla approves of pudding.

Julie and I decided several weeks ago that a good Christmas present to ourselves would be to not put up our Christmas tree. Bah humbug! It was a good decision: our tree is 10 years old and has about a hundred detachable branches that you have to slide into the trunk. It's a total pain. Plus, Lyla would go nuts and probably try to eat the ornaments. So don't judge us.

It hasn't felt like Christmas anyway. I don't know what it is. We're not depressed about it or anything, but for some reason we just haven't felt very jolly about Christmas this year.

In possibly related news, being sick sucks. Remember last Sunday when I had food poisoning? Well, Julie had the exact same thing two nights ago, and it was awful. Then we remembered that the Wednesday before last, Lyla threw up in her crib a couple times, which we didn't analyze at the time because the next morning she was fine. But now, with all of us suffering similar short-lived illnesses staggered in the same two-week period, food poisoning no longer made sense.

It was a viral stomach flu, like you might get on a cruise ship. Our new theory is that Lyla got it from daycare, I got it from her, and Julie got it from me. The lag in between makes sense for two reasons. One, with stomach flu you're contagious from the onset of your symptoms until three days after you feel better. And two, if you do get infected, you don't get it right away. It (gulp) incubates in your intestines for a couple days before manifesting in myriad unpleasant ways. So we all had stomach flu. Case closed.

Julie's still contagious, so she had to miss her family's Christmas party. Trust me: nobody wants what we had, especially Julie's sister Jodie, who is preggers. Julie was totally bummed to miss out, though. I did drive up with Lyla for a couple hours. It was fun to see everyone, but bittersweet because if your wife is stuck at home quarantined and you attend her family's Christmas without her, it doesn't feel like Christmas.

But it was fine. I got home and made Julie dinner. After that, we helped Lyla play with her new Elmo doll and farm set. We watched her try to wrap her head around the idea that Elmo exists simultaneously in books and in person.

Then we ate pudding.

And after putting Lyla to bed, I went downstairs with my poor contagious wife. She rested on the couch while I did what I should have done weeks ago. I put up the tree.


I can't wait to show it to Lyla tomorrow. Now it feels like Christmas.