Before the end of the month, I thought I’d share one last holiday-related story. It was Christmas morning at our house, and though the chestnuts weren’t roasting on the fire, we were having a rather relaxing morning opening gifts and getting ready to visit relatives.

When I walked into my bedroom, I noticed some wrapping paper on the floor and wondered who had left wrapping paper there. Then I realized it was a candy bar wrapper smeared with chocolate.

“Fenway!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, calling for our red long-haired dachshund, who I was pretty sure was the culprit. I glanced over at the present I’d wrapped for my mother-in-law, and sure enough, the milk chocolate candy bar I’d taped to the top of it was gone.

“Fenway!” I yelled again as I came out onto the landing at the top of our stairs, foil paper in hand. My oldest son, Billy, 17, came running down the hall.

“What did he do?” he asked.

“He ate the candy bar I put on top of Grandma O’Donnell’s present,” I told him. He smiled at first, but then the smile turned to a look of concern, when he remembered, as I had, that chocolate is not good for dogs. By this time my other two sons, David, 14, and Jason, 8, bounded up the steps, tearing themselves away from the new Wii game system Santa had brought.

“How much did he eat?” David asked.

I looked at the wrapper, which despite being shredded, was still legible in places. “Three point five ounces,” I replied. I bounded down the steps two at a time with evidence in hand in search of my husband. If I found my husband, then I’d find Fenway; the two are inseparable unless there is a doggie treat — or obviously chocolate — involved to lure Fen away. My boys followed me into the family room where Kevin, my husband, was taking a nap on the couch with a very guilty looking Fenway lying beside him. When Fenway saw me, his ears drooped and his eyes cast downward.

Kevin quickly became aware of the gravity of the situation — 3.5 ounces of chocolate is a lot for a 16-pound dachshund to devour in what was probably a world-record-setting pace. We knew that chocolate could cause severe — even fatal problems — for dogs, but we didn’t know the details.

David got on the Internet and found some charts that implied Fenway would probably be OK since he’d eaten milk chocolate and not baking chocolate, which included more of the ingredient toxic to dogs. But even though it was probably nothing to worry about, we still wanted to get more information. Fenway wasn’t looking so good.

We called an emergency veterinarian’s office, and they told us considering Fenway’s size and the amount of chocolate he had eaten, that it was a ‘borderline situation’ as to whether or not it could cause problems. The doctor suggested we give Fenway two tablespoons of hydrogen peroxide to induce vomiting. Then he said we should take him for a walk, and if the blessed event still hadn’t occurred, then we were to give him two more tablespoons. Luckily, I had a syringe in the medicine box I kept for Jason’s allergy medications. So Kevin held Fenway’s head still while I quickly squirted the peroxide down Fen’s throat. Precision teamwork just like on “ER.” After a 15-minute walk, Fenway still hadn’t thrown up, so we had to give him more peroxide. This was more difficult the second time around since Fenway knew what to expect and was ready to fight us off. He was a feisty one. “Hold his mouth open!” I shouted.

“I’m trying to!” Kevin would shout back, as he attempted to pry Fen’s jaws apart. Somehow our relaxing Christmas morning had turned into Operation Dog Barf. Such is my life. We were beginning to panic at the thought of what to do next if the peroxide didn’t work. We were down to our last bit of peroxide in the syringe when it finally happened. Fen barfed, and the boys — and Kevin and I — actually cheered. And yes, Fen had definitely eaten a chocolate bar. “Cool!” yelled my 8-year-old as he surveyed the mess in front of him. Oh, I could think of other words.

Why is it the mom who always has to clean up this kind of thing?

We ended up being late to my mother’s house for lunch, but our morning’s escapades provided a great conversation topic. Fenway was understandably a little lethargic and didn’t have much of an appetite for several days.

And we will always remember the morning of Fenway’s Christmas Chocolate.