THERE ARE two times each year when germs and viruses have a field day--the first week of school and the Christmas-New Year holiday season.

This year the first week of school wasn't too bad. Usually when kids get together after a summer of fun they pass around every virus known to man.

And they don't discriminate. They not only give the runny noses and sneezing and coughing to each other, they also take those plagues home to their parents, who pass them to everyone at work.

It is almost as if the germs and viruses breed in the classrooms all summer just waiting for unsuspecting kids to come along.

Youngsters can congregate at swimming pools, movie theaters, youth camps, Bible schools or family reunions and catch nothing. Then, after the first week of school they all start getting sick.

As I said, this past September was pretty illness-free but Christmas was another story. I don't know about anyone else, but this Christmas season was little more than a long series of moans and groans from my family.

To put it in perspective, I called my daughter, Caroline, two days before New Year's Eve and asked her how everyone was doing.

"Well, no one has thrown up yet today," she replied. Knocking on wood, she added, "But the day is not over."

All my relatives in Lynchburg made it through that day with no upchucking but the next morning Caroline was not able to get out of bed. It was that kind of a holiday.

It started with my son-in-law coming down with a respiratory virus or sinus infection (both cause the same misery). He spent two days in bed before getting up to take his family to his parents' house the Saturday before Christmas.

Somehow he made it the two hours getting back home and through Christmas Day but by then my daughter was complaining of stomach pains. The next day she was in bed, getting out only long enough to race to the bathroom.

Then my son-in-law caught his wife's intestinal virus, and it has been making the rounds ever since--my daughter being unlucky enough to get it twice.