My (Big)(Fat)(White)Christmas

Christmas came in this year with a blizzard. Fortunately, LovelyDaughter and JD agreed to come over a couple of days early, so they got snowed in at our house instead of theirs. And a friend of ours who was coming for Christmas also came early and got snowed in here, so we were set.

(Many other families were not that fortunate. JD missed visits with his family because some of them were snowed in by the blizzard in Oklahoma City, and others were stuck in another town in Nebraska. I know he was enormously disappointed.)

FOOD: Christmas Eve I cooked a small turkey--I insisted that for once we had to have turkey, for me, because to me that says "HOLIDAY"-- with mashed potatoes, etc., and pumpkin pie. Christmas Day I cooked a ham, and did verenike with onion gravy, etc., with pecan pie for dessert.

EVENTS: Christmas Eve we played "In A Pickle," and then we put out our plates. In the morning I put out the gifts, covered by bandannas, and filled the stockings with pistachios and candy. When everyone got up, we sat around the table and the kids took turns uncovering the gifts that Hubby and I gave them, and emptying the socks. Then we moved over by the woodstove and the kids gave gifts to each other and to us. In the middle of it all, DrummerDude called (!) from Costa Rica where he is on Outreach with YWAM. (By the way, my little countdown calendar tells me he has been gone for 102 days and he'll be home in 39!)

After the gift excitement was over, we still had the excitement of the blizzard outside, and watching the snow dump and blow into huge drifts. We didn't get dug out until Monday afternoon.

And now here I am, two days later, all the snowbound guests gone home, looking at the piles of snow outside, and the gray, gray day. No, gray is not exactly the right word. I guess technically the day is white, white, white. White snow, white clouds, white sky, white everything. But it FEELS gray. And that makes ME feel gray.

But I'm trying to feel sunnier. I got on Facebook and I answered all but two of the dozen or so "requests" that I've been trying to ignore. I sent back doohickeys.

I did something today that I've been procrastinating for several weeks. And I'm finishing up a batch of homemade granola that I bought the ingredients for a month ago. And, amazingly, someone I haven't talked to for a very long time contacted me yesterday, and we are meeting this afternoon for a visit. She has no idea yet how much it means to me, and I'm sure I will feel a lot sunnier afterwards!