Not-So-Traditional Christmas Eve

Let me start out by saying that Christmas Eve is one of my favorite days of the year. Even more so than Christmas day. When I was growing up, all the special spiritual stuff was done on Christmas Eve. We'd have a big dinner by candlelight and later acted out the nativity and read Luke 2. Christmas was obviously fun too, but it was more focused on presents. So I had high hopes for our first Christmas Eve with Sadie. That was probably my first mistake. It seems that "ideal" events never go quite like imagined with kids.

It all started with my bounteous (or intended to be that way) Christmas feast. The culprit of the story is the innocent ham. Actually, I take that back. It was the oven that the ham was cooking in...

It was 6:00 and Kevin was due home from work in just half an hour. I was working away in the kitchen while Sadie played innocently on the floor next to me. I admit I wasn't exactly watching her too closely (another mistake) and I heard her let out a scream. We have a drawer underneath our oven where we store our pots and pans, and even though the drawer was closed, there's a 1/2 inch gap in between the bottom of the oven and the drawer. Know what I'm talking about? Sadie was sitting there with her little hand stuck in that gap. I immediately grabbed her hand out of there and stuck my fingers where hers had been. It was HOT. Really hot. I never in a million years would have thought to check that spot. Upon first examination of her hand, I was relieved. It was certainly red, but didn't look too bad. But boy, was that girl crying! I tried to run her hand under cool water, but couldn't handle the full-out kicking, screaming 20-pound creature that she had morphed into, so I ran her upstairs to see what first-aid supplies we had on hand. Five minutes later, I took another look at her hand and my stomach dropped to my toes. I could see the beginning of at least two huge blisters forming on the back of her little hand. I knew that second degree burns were a whole other ball game. I got ahold of an on-call nurse at the hospital and she said I'd probably have to bring her in. To the ER. On Christmas Eve. There went my magical night.

So I turned off the oven, left my half-finished dinner sitting on the counter, and packed Sadie over to the hospital. I'll admit I was pretty distraught. I was fighting tears as we made our way through the quiet streets, when I realized that Sadie was giggling in the back seat. Giggling? What happened to being in pain from a fried hand? It was so random that I started laughing. And then she heard me laugh and that got her laughing even harder. When I finally got to the hospital and opened the back door, she was all smiles. And she was even happier when Kevin met us at the hospital a few minutes later. She was in a good mood the rest of the night. Heavenly Father must have been watching out for my sanity.

Moral of the story: That little space between the drawer and the oven? It's hot.

Sadie's big pink gauze-wrapped hand. I know it's terrible, but isn't it kind of cute?

Sadie and "hospital bear" - her souvenier for being so brave in the ER.