What happened to December?

So, I had the best of intentions for December. I really did. I was going to post, right after we bought the Christmas presents that needed to cross international borders. And then I was going to post after we finally got them shipped. And then I was going to post during my son and husband's holiday, but my husband and daughter got sick and then stayed sick. For. The. Whole. Holiday.

Like I said, I had the best of intentions. So, here's the gist of December from our POV.

We made our own tree out of construction paper hands. It's taped to our door. The lights cost us about $25.

My daughter with the beginning of our tree

All done! Kinda. The origami nativity ornaments
will hopefully be completed next year.

Origami shepherd (jawa-esque, right?), sheep, star,
and everything is always better with glittery pompoms.

The buck-toothed camel really adds a nice touch.

So, the tree was finished just in time for no one to care, honestly. We opened presents on the Japanese Emperor's birthday (two days before Christmas) because my husband needed to work on Christmas. The kids had an entire day of gorging themselves on the newness, delivered by the postman on behalf of our generous relatives in America, before my daughter came down with a severe cold that included delightful episodes of fever and barfing. Barfing, on our bed. And let me remind you that, while we have a washing machine with a capacity that can accommodate our bed cover, we don't have a dryer. That's called "outside," except when it's raining. Like it did, every day that my daughter threw up. And then my husband got sick. And then my son woke up with pinkeye and I had to have a neighbor drive me to the eye doctor with him on what was probably the last clinic day before the entire country went on vacation for a week.

Fast forward through that awfulness (how I envy you right now), and everybody is healthy now and life is pretty much back to normal. And the tree is still up. So maybe "normal" is overselling it a bit...