YET ANOTHER CICHELLO CHRISTMAS

                                                          Eileen Cichello

 

Christmas 1996 started off on a positive note, the major challenge seeming to be where to bed down the 16 who would be staying at the house during the holiday season.

On December 18, our son John, a seminarian with the Glenmary Home Missionaries, drove in from D.C. On the 21^st, our son Paul flew in from Washington State and son Michael from Florida.  Now we had enough people to play pinochle, always a cause for rejoicing!  It ain't pretty when Cichellos sit down to play pinochle together.  Nobody is willing to give up the bid and nobody will let anyone else have it cheap.  Some cutthroat, glorious games followed.

Sam and I got our Christmas present early.  We're operating on the one-gift-$40-limit-exchanged-between-family-members-regime and the two who had our names had combined to give us The Bread Machine (it was on sale).  They put it into immediate service and soon the smell of fresh baked bread wafted through the house.

The invasion started in earnest December 26.  Our daughter Claire and her husband Steve arrived with their dog Smokey, who promptly ingested a package of yeast.  There was much speculation on what it might do to him and someone suggested, "Yeast needs sugar to work.  Let's give him some sugar and see what happens."  We vetoed that notion fast.

Soon after, our son Anthony arrived, without his wife, who was singing at a friend’s wedding in South America, but with their three kids, Bridget, Sammy and Teresa, to be followed by our daughter Mary, her husband Tom and their three, Michael, John and Claire, plus Jana, their au pair and their dog Bo.

We opened presents that night and all went smoothly until Claire Beck, eighteen months, decided all the presents were for her.   When she found out different, things got a little chaotic.

December 27, Steve got up at 5 a.m. and went off duck hunting with a friend.  Jen, Paul's girlfriend, arrived and I have to wonder what she thought of the chaos around her with kids and dogs milling around.  The door to the living room had to be kept closed, the door to the room where the kids' toys were stored (which they called their lab and which sported a sign saying "Grownups Keep Out") had to be kept closed, the door to the spare refrigerator had to be blocked off, all to keep Smokey from chewing toys and sundries.  The stairs were gated to keep Claire Beck off them and in the midst of this mayhem our daughter Claire, with help from various family members, was preparing gourmet sauces to go with the duck, while I prepared the rest of the meal.   

Steve returned.  They hadn't shot any ducks but his friend had given him several ducks out of his freezer. Our sons departed for a swim meet and Jen went with them, though she hates swim meets.  It probably seemed like the sane thing to do, given what was happening in the house.

We fed the grandchildren hot dogs and Tator Tots, plugged them into a video, put Claire Beck to bed and proceeded with our prime rib and duck dinner, after which the kids presented Sam with his belated birthday present, a wine making kit.  

Saturday, Jen left in the afternoon and all our kids went to a local pub for get togethers with their high school friends.  Sunday, I saw a friend after Mass and she said, "We're having a Christmas like you had a few years ago.  Everyone's sick." 

"Oh, we're all healthy this time around," I said. 

Mistake!

Later on Sunday, Paul, Claire, Steve and Smokey left and everyone here just hung out.   Mary ran around Sunday night gathering all their supplies and managing to fit in a pinochle game.  She showed her Cichello genes, overbidding like the rest of the crew.  I made bags of sandwiches for them to take on their trip home and told her I'd call her at 6:30, as they wanted an early departure.

I called Mary the next morning promptly at 6:30, getting a grunt in response.   Seems she'd been throwing up all night and so had her son, Michael Beck.  As had Bridget and Sammy.  The latter two had had to go through the room in which our sons, John and Michael, were sleeping, on their many trips to "the vomitorium,” as John has renamed the upstairs bathroom.   Then we find out that Anthony had thrown up Saturday afternoon, had attributed it to his evening at the pub the night before and kept quiet about it.  (There's some debate about that.  He says, "I didn't have much to drink."  Someone else mentioned something about three shots of tequila.) 

Jana, the au pair, was not feeling well.

About ten, the Becks departed, since Tom had to be back for an important meeting at work.  He was having sinus problems.  His parting shot to me, "This makes it three for three, doesn't it?", referring to the past two Christmases.  "No way," I said. "Last year, everyone stayed healthy." 

They left, with plastic containers lined with plastic bags, with ties to close the bags, with Pepto-Bismol, with towels, and with our prayers.  Mary called some eight hours later to report that they were home and that everyone except Tom and Claire had thrown up on the way.

Here at home, Michael got sick, John got sick.  Paul called from Washington State to ask how long this thing lasted.  He was sick, his girlfriend Jen was sick.  Claire called from Albany.  She and Steve were sick.  They'd invited four couples to attend a gourmet dinner and wine tasting at a restaurant near their camp, and couldn't cancel out.  Steve took a plastic bag to the dinner with him.

We had put another Cichello Christmas to rest.  Rumors are rife in the family that Sam and I, like Typhoid Mary, were the carriers, since we stayed healthy throughout.  I deny all such charges and remind them that EVERYONE in all parts of the country got sick during the 1996 Christmas season, not just our family.  After all, I do want them to come back!