Oh Christmas, what a wonderful time for family and great food. Every Christmas Eve my family made it a tradition to go to my grandmother’s house for homemade food and sharing of gifts. The food was always the most important part of the get together because granny was an amazing cook. After our tummies were full we would huddle next to my granny’s huge decorative tree and exchanges gifts and laughs and cherish the time we were sharing. One year however was not quite so jolly. December 24, 2002 was the year that my family will never forget. It started off like every other joyous occasion as we all settled in at grans house and greeted each other. The children sat and talked about gifts while the adults sat and discussed the meal ahead. Uncle Rick always stole a piece of pie before dinner every year we could always count on that. It was finally dinner time and we all stood in our usual buffet style line around the kitchen and loaded up our plates. The meal plan was the same each year. My gran always new exactly what she was going to make and exactly how to prepare it. Time had passed and tummies were full. Some were still staggering along and grabbing more food and gluttony was taking place all around. You could find members of the family all spread out now, some were tired and some couldn’t even move from the paralyzed feeling after stuffing down too much food. The kids were impatiently waiting for presents and my aunt rounded everyone up to start the madness. Little did five family members know; that there was a war going on inside their stomachs at that very moment. You see, the very thing that brought so much joy and pleasure, was about to bring a lot of pain and agony in full force to the five unlucky people who enjoyed a certain tasty dessert. The disguised culprit of this incident was none other than a devilishly good looking coconut cream pound cake. My aunt Anne always played Santa every year and started handing out the gifts. The children went at it and paper was flying everywhere. There was laughter and joy and then without warning it hit. It started off with my cousin Mark as he must have either ate it first or had the weakest immunity towards the demon cake. He jumped up off the floor and ran out of the room. We were all puzzled and thought maybe he was disappointed in a gift he received or something. At that moment we were all unaware that Marks insides were facing destruction as his antibodies were in combat with the poisonous wrath of the coconut cream pound cake. Meanwhile, the next two victims were sitting there on the couch faces red and motionless. Aunt Diana and Uncle Dave were realizing that they too were filling strange and talked about it amongst themselves. They too had the cake with a nice warm cup of coffee. Diana was hit hard she was looking up and telling up that something made her sick. She ran out to the second and last bathroom at grans house. At this point the gifts were at a halt and we all realized that there was food poisoning in our midst. This frightened us all because we had no idea which food item it was and anyone of us could be next. Dave handled it like a champ and just laid there with his face in my grans throw pillow clinching his fist and sweating. Gran got him a cold rag and a bucket to sit beside him. Now there was panic in the room. “It’s happening to me” said my aunt Anne or should I say Santa. She ended up getting hit the hardest and now days we assume it’s because she had the most cake. She was thereby relieved of her Santa duties and made her way to the back porch. The last one to get hit was my other uncle Richard and apparently his immune system is highly encrypted with a high tech security system because it only made him have to pass a lot of gas and sweat a little. It took a total of two hours for everything to settle down. Three of the five went home and two remained and Christmas Eve continued that night. It was later discovered that the eggs used in the cake were bad. Every Christmas Eve, that event is the topic of conversation and provides us with so much laughter. No one seems to eat the coconut cream pound cake anymore and it’s usually left in its entirety on the table. less