Christmas - Real Life

Christmas with our families has been such a gift!!! Smiles, laughing so hard that tears emerge, delicious food at every meal, a needed break that has helped us continue to heal from our year.

BUT we all know that there are way more stories behind the pictures full of perfect smiles and happy faces where the clothes are all color coordinated and the pets are actually looking at the camera.

Bearden Family Christmas dinner. We traveled nine hours from Arkansas through the rain to finally get to my family’s house to have our traditional chili and tamales last night. Reality #1. It’s winter and people tend to get sick. My poor sister in law had to stay at her house with a stomach bug. So while she stayed in bed, we made the best of it, and with just my brother began to enjoy our Christmas dinner. Reality #2. Dogs don’t really know when we are trying to have a special meal before they also decide to get sick. About half way into the meal, Gabe begins to throw up EVERYWHERE!  And now concludes the TV version of the family smiling around a table. Throw up in the living room. The kitchen. And a nice trail to the back door. So much that we realized the boarding place he’d been at the night before included green and orange chunky food. Two family members continue to hang out at the table while Jason, my mom and I jump up for the next 30 minutes to clean and clean and care for our sick doggie. Now we move on to gifts. Reality #3. My mom, the epitome of detailed design, got tired of wrapping presents this year, so our presents were in brown bag lunch bags. Like the elementary school version. Of course with Christmas stickers for an added  touch. So with three dogs vying for attention and two kittens constantly jumping all over the place with the phrases “Get down!” “What are you doing?!?” “Get out of the tree!” “Linus! Lucy!!” continually being heard, the gift exchange went smoothly.

A new day. The cats are still running amuck, the laughter is still going, actually harder at this point, the dog is now fine, and for your sake the pictures from last night were not taken. And ya know, sometimes at Christmas you just shake your head and say, “Welp, this is real life!”