I'm sorry to hear about your experience, but I can definitely sympathize with medical emergencies ruining holidays! Just this Thanksgiving my appendix burst the night before and at 1:00am Thanksgiving Day I was in surgery getting it removed. Needless to say, Thanksgiving Day was spent in a hospital bed! Not an enjoyable experience to be sure, but I look at it this way:

Not only will I never have to worry about appendicitis ever again in my lifetime, but had this happened a century earlier, I may have died and that would really ruin my holiday! :o)

Tracy