The Holidays...snow happens!

Christmas 2007 has come and gone…I managed to meet my number one goal: seating everyone in the dining room for the meal (due to storage issues that have plagued us we would transform the living room mid-visit into a dining room). Our home is not huge, our family is and is still growing. Often one or more family members will invite others to our festivities, so an accurate head count is usually out of the question. I’m fairly flexible in these circumstances, my husband on the other hand is not.
Christmas Eve Eve (just after eight o’clock) with the tree nearly completely decorated we lost our power. Not to worry…I was prepared! I had bought and installed new batteries in an old radio boom box and set the tuner to the 24 hour Christmas station two days ago. I grabbed a flashlight and headed upstairs to get it and stopped at the pantry and grabbed the bowl of candles. The house was lit with candles and oil lamps, Christmas music filled the air, I poured some more wine…yes, very pleasant. My husband’s children had arrived earlier that day and this was the perfect opportunity for them to stop the “rush” and sit and visit.
Christmas Eve Morning we awoke to no power and snow on the ground…this wasn’t good. My husband informed me that the power had come on about four and went right back out. I asked him to call the power company and check the status…again, not good…he was told to stay on the line to speak to a representative. The power company was not aware that our power had gone back out. Again, not a good sign…we had a fifteen pound rib roast that needed to be in the oven by ten and it was after eight! Time for a back-up plan…we still needed a gift card for my son and his wife and had planned to go to the New Seasons Market this morning anyway…I finished the list and had my husband and his daughter do the shopping and I stayed home with his son and we finished the preparations we could without any power or water (we have a well). The back-up plan was to get a spiral cut ham. About one o’clock the power came back on and we called my husband and after some discussion decided to cut the 15 pound roast in half and get it in the oven…with the ham we would have more than enough food! We all pitched in and got everything done on time except a once over with a mop to the floors…the kids would go home with gray socks once again! Dinner was wonderful. We opened presents and had dessert. No one had a meltdown. And it snowed some more!
Christmas Morning we woke early and said good bye to my husbands kids, who were due at their mothers. We had a fun day cooking a turkey to share later with good friends. And it snowed some more! We had a white Christmas! It’s something rare in our part of the country. I hope everyone else had as much fun as I did!