I thought I would change it up a little bit this week by sharing a story from last Christmas. By the time Christmas was rolling around, Luna had been with us for a little over a month. She was, overall, a perfect puppy. She had very few accidents in the house, only chewed up a few things, and was doing fairly well when we had to leave her for some extended periods of time. 

Jose and I were not big into crating Luna in the beginning. Well, I should say, I was not a huge fan of crating Luna. My family dog, Sophie, was never crated. She never got into anything at home, so we always gave her the freedom to roam the house. I wanted to provide Luna with that same kind of freedom eventually. However, I also knew that it was not safe to do so at such a young age, especially if we had to leave her for a few hours. So, we created a space for her in our bedroom. Our room in the apartment is the master and has an on-suite bathroom. We purchased a baby gate the first day we got her and had that set up in the bathroom doorway. In the bathroom itself, we made sure to remove the trash can, toilet paper, and any other types of objects she could potentially get a hold of. We set up her bed and blankets near the baby gate to make it as cozy as possible. Lastly, if we knew we would be gone for a couple of hours, we would set up a puppy pad, just in case. This situation worked amazingly for the first whole month we had Luna. She seemed content with the situation. I would never have imagined her doing anything until December 22, 2019.

Last Christmas, my family decided to come and have Christmas down in Florida. It was a huge deal. Not only did this include my parents and brother, but it also included my grandparents and my aunt, uncle, and cousins. It was very exciting because we had not had a Christmas all together in years. I can't even tell you the last Christmas we had together; it had been that long. We were all determined to do all things "Christmas" that you could do in Orlando. One of which was spending some time in Disney's Epcot! Every year Disney parks hold special holiday events. Epcot's special event during this time is the Epcot International Festival of the Holidays. This event allows guests visiting the parks to experience the holiday traditions of different countries in Epcot's world showcase. You can taste the cuisine you may encounter on Christmas Eve or hear some live performances of groups performing traditional holiday music.

This event was something my family wanted to do, so on December 22, we headed to Epcot. Jose and I had already had a plan in place for Luna. We set her up in the bathroom like we always do. After a couple of hours in the park, Jose planned to leave the park to check on her. He would then return to the park later on if my family decided to spend more time there. He knew how important family time was to me and didn't want me having to worry about leaving my family to check on Luna. So, we left Luna, feeling like she was going to be great. Little did we know that we were so incredibly wrong. After going on a few rides and tasting some different types of drinks and foods, Jose decided that it was time to head back. My family and Jose said their goodbyes, and we departed ways in Epcot's Germany pavilion. About thirty or so minutes go by, allowing my family to make our way to the American pavilion. We had just ordered some snacks and sat down at a picnic table to rest a little. That's when my phone started to ring. I looked down to see that I was getting a call from Jose. I immediately picked up, already sensing that something was probably wrong. When I answered, I got the shock of my life.

Jose explains that when he got home, he instantly heard noises coming from the bedroom. He found it odd because he didn't think he would hear that much noise if Luna were in the bathroom where we left her. As he made his way to the bedroom door, he heard Luna's collar jingle, as if she was running. When he opened the door, there was a disaster of a mess in the room, and to the left, right by the baby gate to the bathroom, Luna was sitting, probably attempting to make it look like she hadn't hopped over the gate and destroyed everything.

When Jose told me this, I couldn't believe it, but thought to myself, well, it was bound to happen sooner or later; she was getting bigger after all. I remember asking him what she had gotten into. When I asked this question, there was silence on Jose's end. Instead of telling me, he said he wanted to show me. That's when the phone call ended, and he started up a video call. What popped on my phone screen made me gasp out loud. Luna had gotten into some of our Christmas presents! We have a second Christmas tree that I put up in our bedroom. We didn't have enough room under our tree in the living room for all the presents, so I thought it would be nice to put some of the presents under the tree in our bedroom. That ended up being a big mistake. Luna had shredded the bags and all the tissue paper inside the gift bags. Luckily, by some miracle, none of the gifts had been destroyed. However, she did manage to rip apart some tags on a few of the presents.

At the time, I went into extreme panic mode. So many thoughts came rushing into my head. First, I wanted to make sure that the gifts were not destroyed. Then my mind went to, oh my gosh, I hope Luna's stomach is okay after getting into everything. Lastly, which may have been my biggest concern was knowing that we had no means for leaving her at home alone anymore. Now that she had figured a way to hop the gate, I knew that the set up that we had was not going to cut it for her. Lucky for us, she managed to do this right before I had some vacation for the holiday, so Jose and I had some time to figure out what we wanted to do before we both had to go back to work. It was overall a good learning experience for Luna and Jose, and me.

Reflecting on this memory this year brings great joy to all that were involved. It may have been a little stressful with this one incident, but it was truly a Christmas my family would never forget. We were so blessed and fortunate to spend it together, given everything that ended up transpiring in 2020. This Christmas and holiday season may not be an easy one for many of us this year. With this being said, my wish to all of you is good health, happiness, and prosperity in the new year. Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New year!