Christmas Eve At The Elam's

Hello all. Tonight is the Elam's Christmas Eve. My younger brother is getting married this year and the other siblings have all turned old, with old people lives and old people obligations. So, this year, we decided to schedule Christmas a week early so that we could all spend time with our respective significant others on Christmas. I, of course, have no significant other. So let's have a singles mixer on the real Christmas Eve or else I'll be left at home to sit and watch Season 1 of Jericho alone!

Here is a memory from Christmas Eve last year...

I drove all night to get to Tennessee in time to spend the day before Christmas with my parents. My sister and brother (who are both Chicago improvisers) got in my car after a performance and we drove through the night. I got home at 7am, slept for a few hours and then woke up to start the festivities with my family. I was expecting a normal Christmas Eve type of day. I got up and took a shower to wash off the funk from the drive the night before. When I got out of the shower though, my brother and sister were knocking on the bathroom door.

I opened the door with a huge smile on my face, expecting to get the Christmas bits started. You see, we are an improviser family. We make jokes that go on for hours or days or years in my family. For example, Scott pooped on himself once about 7 years ago and we all thought it was so funny that we created a "Poop Dollar" that gets passed around to whoever pooped on himself last. I currently have the poop dollar. Anyway, we like to do bits in my family. Well, this particular Christmas Eve morning, I opened the door expecting bits. I was smiling from ear to ear when my sister spoke. She said "Daddy just got wheeled out on a stretcher to the Emergency Room". Ahhhhh yeeeeaaahhhhh, I thought. I've been up for 5 minutes and they've already got a joke in the oven for me. Let the Christmas games begin...

It wasn't until I saw tears streaming down Scott's cheeks that I realized that this wasn't a joke. I would have loved to have seen my face. The stupid fucking look of Christmas joy, changing to confusion, changing to a blank stare as I replayed what had been told to me and reconsidered it through a new, serious filter and then the look of fear. I wish I had it on tape.

We all rushed to the hospital and sat around together, waiting for any sort of news on what was wrong with him. Eventually, the doctors told us that he had "blown his spleen apart" and was bleeding internally for hours. He had bled 80% of the way to death, but would be alright after surgery. It all ended well and he is fine. But, needless to say, we didn't really get to celebrate Christmas.

Also, in case you are wondering, we DEFINITELY got our hospital bits in there. We took pictures with him while he was high on morphine like we were tourists at a landmark and now, whenever he is upset, we say "chill out Daddy, don't bust a spleen". For copies of those pictures, look on my facebook under the album "It's a Spleenessee Christmas".

Brett