After a series of shitty christmases this one may top them all

[Lonecatwithkitten]

Christmas 2017 DP's mum who was in Orlando developed a life threatening chest infection - he was gone to sit at her bedside.
Christmas 2018 his mum still in Orlando died on 21/12 he flew out to make initial arrangements was due back on 24/12 flight went technical he eventually reached Iceland at 11pm 24/12 with no flights out till Boxing Day.
Christmas 2019 DP having chemo for lymphoma and another family death.
This year I am on call vet and phone system lost all it's programming overnight so unable to forward calls to my mobile. Telecoms engineer is not answering his phone so for three hours I have been sat alone in the practice in case the phone rings. Waiting for the on call engineer to answer his phone, the service desk ladies are calling him every 3 minutes he so far as over 60 missed calls from them - you might think he would notice.

That sounds crap OP I hope the engineer responds soon so you can go home and have Christmas.
I imagine the service desk ladies aren’t having a great day either!
DSis once had to dash to the vet with her dog Xmas day after it managed to eat half a box of chocolates whilst we were eating lunch. I hope your day, work wise, is uneventful.

That all sounds awful. I hope your day has improved?

I'm really sorry.

Just update the answer phone message with your mobile number and go home?

Eng123. Someone would keep the number and ring at 3am when their pet became poorly!

OP did it get fixed so you could leave?

@Eng123 need an engineer to be able to unravel the electronic phone system to be able to access the answerphone to sort the message.
Sadly despite paying megabucks for 24/7 the engineer claims we do not have Christmas Day cover! The account manager will be getting a rollicking on Tuesday.
The solution has been a message will my mobile number on Facebook contacting all the other local practices to let them know the problem and my phone number. Fortunately we nearly do our own out of hours and have excellent working relationships.

Sorry for all your trouble, that's a tough long list of woe. I had several years when everytime I took my annual foreign holiday and was therefore uncontactable I'd miss a major family event such as Dad's near fatal motorbike accident, mum's emergency triple heart bypass (we had no idea she'd been developing a bad heart), an unexpected death of a much loved pet (respect to you op), etc., it got so as I'd expect it. But a run like that can't continue forever. I hope you have a wonderfully normal Christmas next year op, rich with ordinary dry turkey and a slightly wrong box of chocolates, because perfect isn't perfect really and ordinary feels amazing in the absence of routine trouble!