Can I get a Christmas Re-do?

Ugh, I wish I had one of those "happy, everything was wonderful" Christmas posts.  Nothing tragic happened, it just wasn't the best Christmas.

The morning of Christmas Eve, DH came downstairs and said he wasn't feeling well.  He was awake for about an hour and then went back to bed.  By the afternoon, he was running a 102 fever.  We always celebrate with my husband's side of the family on Xmas Eve and we had plans to go to my BIL house that night at 5:00. 

I ended up taking the kids by myself and it was fine.  The twins love their 2 cousins and they played with them all night.  I had planned to come back home by 9:00 or 9:30 but my husband's other brother and his wife shot that plan out the window.  I'll refer to them as T & D.

Do you have anyone in your family that is so self-centered and selfish that you just can't comprehend their actions?   The type of people that think everything revolves around their schedule?

Yep, that's my husband's youngest brother and his wife.  They do this sort of thing ALL OF THE TIME.

We have celebrated with my husband's family on Christmas Eve for the last 10 years.  It's a set plan and everyone knows the routine.  A few years ago,  T & D started attending the 5:00 service at their church but they would always come over afterwards and would usually arrive by 7:00 or so. 

This year, they decided to attend church and then go to dinner afterwards.  They said they thought they would still arrive by 8:00 but that time came and went.  Keep in mind this is 3 hours after the rest of us arrived. 

My kids go to bed by 8:00, at the latest.  So, now I've got 2 increasingly sleepy and grumpy toddlers on my hands.  By myself.  And, then 8:30 came.  And, they still weren't there.  I was started to get a little mad.

We haven't seen T &D or their 3 kids since my twins birthday in October.  I was tempted to just leave without seeing them but I wanted to see my nieces and I wanted to see them open their presents and I would hope that they would like to see the twins open theirs.

Apparently their dinner plans were more important?

They finally arrived at 9:45 and you better believe I made a few comments:

To my BIL:  "If you had been 5 minutes later, you would've missed us".  And then my SIL had the nerve to say, "I can't believe you're still here". 

Are you friggin' serious?!

I quickly replied, "Well, we wanted to see you and I thought you'd want to see us too.  But, we need to leave in the next 10 minutes.  The kids are tired and so am I".

We quickly exchanged gifts and then I loaded the kids in the car.  They were completely exhausted and I was thinking about all of the stuff that I still needed to do back home (put some toys together, finish wrapping). 

I fell into bed at midnight and DH was still sick as a dog.

And, then Christopher woke up at 2:30 am.  And, wouldn't go back to bed.  I finally took him down to the living room, where he caught the first glimpse of his Xmas presents.  So much for capturing the kids' expressions as they entered the room on Christmas morning.  We both dozed on the couch until 7:30 am.

I went upstairs to wake up Kendall and Daddy and thought, "OK, here we go!  It's Christmas morning!" and I was super excited.

And, then the kids weren't interested in opening any presents.  At all.

I stayed up until midnight wrapping their gifts and I had to open all of them.  Why did I bother?

And, DH was still sick.

So, it was just the twins and I all day on Christmas. 

I know that none of what happened is a big deal if I'm looking at the big picture but I was so disappointed at how the day went.  I have such fond memories of Christmas as a child and it's my favorite holiday.  I envisioned getting pictures of the twins opening their presents and laughing and giggling. Instead I got temper tantrums and 2 toddlers who had their own agenda. I hated that DH was sick and stayed in bed all weekend.  I hated that his brother was so selfish and that we didn't get to spend more time with everyone.

I guess there's always next year.