Calm before the storm

This morning I received a beautiful gift from some friends. These flowers are what was delivered to my snowy front door. I just love Christmas centerpieces. Look how pretty they are on my table! You can see a little snow through the window, too.

Like I said before, according to the weather folks, we are in for it this weekend. Freezing snow with wind. That's the worst forecast for us forest-dwellers...whole trees falling, branches breaking off, knocking down power wires, blocking roads...that's a formula for power outages, lots of discomfort, and lives coming to a standstill. So today I ventured out to stock up before it hits again...the main roads are actually quit passable, but these side residential roads are treacherous and scary. I dropped Megan off to go sledding with her cousin, then went over to Mom's to take her out for a few errands. It was a fun day and all is well.

Tonight I cooked so Chris and Ward came over for dinner. Salmon again. That was fun; we always have a good time together. Except for the girls' work interrupting things. Whenever we are together, they spend a lot of the time taking work calls. I'm starting to consider yelling in the background, "It's FAMILY time now!" Sometimes I wonder if their co-workers have lives outside of work.

Nick knows almost every one of his Christmas presents. I can't imagine why kids keep guessing and hounding and hunting throughout the house, etc. What fun is Christmas if you know all your gifts ahead of time? I even dislike opening them on Christmas eve...it's like ya just couldn't wait a few more hours. I know some families have to do it that way, just to cover all the bases, but I always held to the routine of Christmas morning.

One year when my girls were young, we had a wood burning fireplace. Jill was worried about Santa getting burnt. Chris, older and wiser, informed her of why there's no danger of him getting burned. Jill refused to buy into that and Warren overheard them whispering, plotting to catch Santa in the act. Chris was going to prove she was right by setting her alarm for 2:00 a.m. But when the two girls sneaked out to the tree at 2:00, there were no gifts and Santa had not been there. They hung around for as long as little kids could, but finally gave up and went back to bed.

What they didn't know was that Santa had set his alarm for 4:00. Not only did he bring gifts, he also left boot tracks from the fireplace ashes in a trail on the carpet. I wish you all could have seen Chris' face when she saw those tracks and gifts...it was priceless!