Probably everyone has a holiday horror story whatever "holiday season" holiday you do or don't celebrate. The time Jimmy threw up on the Christmas presents or the
time Mordechai knocked Rachel out cold with a flying dreidel or the when the cat caught fire playing
with the Kwanzaa candles. But the holidays are about miracles, too--filled Christmas stockings for
hungry children, oil lamps that stay burning, celebration amid oppression. No matter how Scroogy we
may claim to be, we each carry a holiday miracle in us. Here's mine. The only reason I believe that Christmas 1997 actually happened is that we survived to tell the tale.
No one could invent so unfortunate a series of events. I call it the "Christmas of the enemy appendix,
the almost-nativity and the miracle snow." Here's how it happened.
December 7, 1997: Pearl Harbor memorial day. On this Sunday dawn our oldest was battling her own
axis powers in her tummy. Daddy took the boys to church
and I stayed home to care for Molly and her enemy
stomach. When dad got home we decided to head to the
hospital for troop reinforcements as Molly's tummy ache wasn't letting up. The enemy was identified as a toxic
appendix. War was declared and it was removed post
haste.
December 12, 1997: The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Caring for a post-op appendix surgery child with 156
abdominal stitches and two active little boys had left me with little time to Christmas shop. Did I mention I was great with child? My mom warned me against going
shopping. But Christmas wasn't waiting for me, I said. I managed to put a good dent in the wish lists. But I arrived. home with more than presents. A torn placenta made itself known at 2 a.m. I awoke
in a pool of blood. Husband and mom (who forebore to say "I told you so") rushed me to our local
hospital where doctors worked to stave off labor.
December 14: The bleeding subsided somewhat, but after several contractions, it was agreed that my
baby and I were too high risk for a local hospital. I was shipped by ambulance in the middle of the
night to a huge inner city hospital an hour away. Ambulances shrieked and nurses prophesied how
the full moon was bringing out the crazies. All I saw from my speeding hospital gurney was a carousel
of ceiling colors as we entered and exited departments. My husband worked nights and had to be
called out from under the machine he was fixing, to sit with his wife and pray their baby would not die.
December 21. Baby is deemed tentatively safe enough for Mama to return home on strict bed rest.
The church organist calls, unaware of the enemy appendix and the almost-nativity at our home. She
asks if still-recuperating Molly would like to be Mary in the church pageant. Despite mom's and dad's fears, Molly will not be cheated out of her part. And the show must go on. So, stitches or no, she presided over the
Christmas mass creche. Confined as I was, I couldn't attend. We were both crestfallen but pictures were promised. Our 7-year-old son Albie, good little boy
that he is, (and not a huge fan of boring church, if he's honest) offered to stay and keep mommy company.
December 24. Son and mom are feeling a little forlorn and left out. We cheer ourselves making
Christmas cookies and listening to "O Little Town of Bethlehem." Suddenly, Albie calls to me: "Mom,
look out the window. It's snowing!' In the middle of this Christmas chaos, even the weather had been
uncooperative. A brown Christmas had been forecast. Mama and son watch in delight as huge
Michigan snowflakes fill the Christmas Eve sky. Everyone arrives home bubbling over at how wonderful Molly
Mary was and surprised at the unexpected snow. Albie and I share a secret smile, knowing it came
just for us.
The appendix healed. The baby lived to delight us all, although she did keep the whole family dancing a merry
tune right up to her birth. Christmas 1997 was one of those times you say, "You couldn't pay me a
million dollars to do it again and I wouldn't have missed it for all the money in the world."
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