True Story:  One of my favorite Christmas memories happened this year, during my 35th Christmas.

Fav Memory #1

The weekend before Christmas, Gray and I went up to North Alabama to have Christmas with the family.

We did immediate family night on Friday. We have lots to celebrate at the end of one of the worst years in all our lives. Baby sister got married in November to a great guy, so we got a new bro in law; Mom has a clean bill of health after a health scare; Middle sister and bro in law get to move to a new city with a great new job; And my film got into Sundance. So good Times!

Saturday night we did extended family fun. We have a long tradition of playing Dirty Santa with the extended family on Christmas.

Not that kind of Dirty Santa you dirty birds. I know we are from the south where it is completely acceptable to be “dirty” with your first cousin… But that is not how we roll.

This dirty Santa means you can steal gifts from people.

We are cleaning and putting food out and getting ready for family to show up. Just about the time folks start coming through the door G Monkey comes up to me and says, “there’s something wrong with my pants, Mommy”.

Me:  What do you mean?

G Monkey:  Uh, huh…

I look in his pants… Full on diarrhea everywhere. Nasty!

Me:  Come on. Come on, let’s get to the bathroom, quick.

My niece and nephew have jack and Jill bathrooms. I take Gray to my nephews bathroom. Running in there, I find my nephew and Bro in law washing their hands and looking very frustrated.

J:  We’re in here Ashley.

Me:  Sorry, emergency.

I turn to run the other direction with G Monkey, but have to stop short as I am standing in 2 inches of water.

Me: Hey, What’s this?

I point to the toilet water I am standing in.

J: Oh Sh*t.

Apparently Nephew and his Daddy are still learning about the proper amount of toilet paper use.

Now toilet water was flowing down the hall and into the living room where guests were arriving.

I back track out of there and push G Monkey down to my niece’s side of the bathroom. I precariously take his pants and underwear off. I think I’ve got it all together with no mess, when… Plop. The whole pair of underwear flipped out of my hand and flat on the floor. Gross!

I start yelling for help. J is yelling for help on his end. Both 3-year-olds are just staring at us. All the while I am dry heaving at the distusting-ness of it all.

I yell for help again while I keep G Monkey from touching anything until I can get the floor and toilet cleaned up, and am able to get him in the bath.

My sister runs back and forth to each bathroom bringing disinfectant wipes and towels.

I finally get G Monkey in the bath and we get both bathrooms cleaned up.

We come out sweating to greet our family members.

This is when I announce that this really is my favorite Christmas Memory, and a really special time we should all remember. One of those, make sure “you live in the moment moments”. 

True Side Story:  One of my uncles lives for Dirty Santa. I think he thinks about his Dirty Santa gift for most of the calendar year.

Unfortunately, this year he didn’t think he was going to make the party due to a funeral, and was unable to get a Dirty Santa gift in time.

We knew he wanted to play really badly, so we told him to just go wrap something up.

His gift you wonder?

$30 stuck in a colorectal cancer testing kit… Yes, that’s right. I said a colorectal cancer testing kit. 

Uncle B: This is serious business. You could really use this thing… Sounds to me, like we could go swab those bathroom floors and see if either of these kids is unhealthy.

This is true, we could have. I don’t know how much faith I have in those disinfectant wipes.

Fave Memory #2:

My sweet, sweet, giving and grateful little boy.

I got all my shopping done early this year. G Monkey knew who every present under the tree was for. Every time someone came over to the house that had a gift under the tree he would run and get it for them and say, “You wanna open yo-were present?”

Santa gave G Monkey a Globe, a rocking horse (pogo stick) and a guitar. He comes out Christmas morning and sees what Santa has left.

G Monkey:  Wow, a guitar. Hey, I could use that.

Famous and Ma’am Juwee won the best present award. They gave G Monkey all the Mickey Mouse characters. 8″ Donald, Mickey, Goofy,Pluto, Minnie, and… Hey, Where’s Daisy?

Apparently there was a run on Daisy at Toys R Us.

They had wrapped each character doll in individual boxes. So after a couple of characters G Monkey caught on to the pattern. After he had opened them all but Daisy, he would open every gift after that saying, “Maybe it’s Daisy?” Even if it was clearly a book or a gift for someone else.

I hear he did this with every gift later in the day at his Daddy’s house as well.

He continued this “Maybe it’s Daisy” business for the next couple of weeks. Every time I opened the mail box or unloaded grocery bags, “Maybe it’s Daisy?”

We told G Monkey that Daisy was on a cruise.

Yesterday he was sleepy. It was about 4 o’clock. We were going to change clothes and go to the park. I pulled up to the mailbox to check the mail and guess who popped out???

Daisy.

Yes! She is home from her cruise.

Well, the park was out of the question after that grand surprise. We HAD to play with Daisy… That elusive Ducktress.

True Story:  Amazon.com rocks!