On line this morning I read about how Britain is suffering from the “Winter Vomiting Bug”. Apparently if you get it, and everyone is, be prepared to have it for a while. I have had the “Holiday Vomiting Bug” twice, once immediately after Thanksgiving, and the other two days after Christmas. Aside from my husband, the whole family had it in between the holidays. I stayed on the living room couch sort of out of the way because it had the least amount of carpet to the bathroom and I did not think I could make it up the stairs to the bed room. My family assured me that it was a short term 24 hour flu, but the oldest of them is 40 and I am seventy. I think it is 24 for them, and 48 and more for me. I would say that four out of five Christmases of my adult life have had some sickness by me or by a major participant, including Santa Claus. This is very disheartening. I have had people leave the dinner table to go straight to the hospital although it was not because of my dinner. I think it was Christmas when the EMTs came to deal with my choking mother in law. (Daughters if I am wrong about the exact day, don’t ruin a good story). I have gone to bed and had to have a house guest cook the dinner. And of all times the entrée was a strip filet. What is it about Christmas and health? This year it was the Holiday vomit bug, in town, and we had snow. People say that there has been more snow than what we had, and we have had colder weather than what we had, but we have never had this cold and snow for so long. We were a lot of people cooped up inside with all these germs recycling round and round. You’re it. You’re it. What to do? It is thought that Jesus was actually born in May or at least in the Spring. We could move Christmas to when the weather was good in May. Then we could put on a mild celebration of the solstice. In addition, we could open wide the windows from two to four in the afternoon to let the germs out no matter the weather. Or we could get rid of the dog, which everyone petted and was, believe me, a common denominator. The one idea that can be dismissed is that if you have had the vomit bug once, you can’t get it again.