Our "Progressive" Christmas

We had a progressive Christmas like the Church staff had a progressive dinner party earlier this season, you have your first course of the meal at one house and then move on to another house for the next portion of the dinner. Our first day of Christmas was celebrated at Russ and Judy's, Andy's parents, on December 21st. We had lost power that morning because of all the ice and so Russ came and brought us back to their place where he also went and picked up my Mom and sister as well as SnowCloud and CJ. We all spent the day together, power or not, and made the best of it. When the power did come back on we had delicious soup that Judy had put together and opened some presents (Evelyn's favorite part of the day). Merry Christmas! we all said.

Then came Christmas Eve, another snowy, icy, messy day but it was decided that we should make our best effort to have a Christmas Eve service for those who could make it and so we made it, barely. Evelyn loved the candle light service and sang her heart out along with everyone else when it came time to sing Silent Night. This will be one of my most precious memories of this Christmas. Merry Christmas! we all said.

Christmas morning we realized our teeth were still rattling in our heads from the drive home the night before, it was a nasty commute to put it lightly! Russ and Judy had braved the roads and escaped our little snow globe and were on their way to California early Christmas day. We had planned on getting together with my Mom, sister and her boyfriend TJ but none of us dared try and get out on the roads. So Evelyn had a perfectly delightful, quiet Christmas Day at home with Mom and Dad and Scout. That evening I invited our neighbor, Mary, over for a Christmas dinner. She is single with all her family in California and we were all in the same boat - trapped by our icy driveway. So we had a simple but tasty dinner of home made chicken soup, bread, cheese and crackers and summer sausage. Merry Christmas! we all said.

The day after Christmas we woke up to a thick layer of ice still hanging on but losing it's grip on us. Andy was able to dig out our van and get it started. He then kicked and spun his way down our driveway and onto our street. He then kicked and spun the wheels back up our driveway when done running some errands and we questioned whether our 3rd and final Christmas was going to happen. We were supposed to be over to my Mom's that afternoon. We decided to make a go for it, fought our way back down the slippery track we call a driveway and were off to have yet another Christmas. Evelyn and I spent the night to squeeze as much time out of the night as we could however Evelyn was the only one who managed to stay up late. She was SO excited to spend the night she didn't fall asleep until after 11:00pm!!! Finally, tucked into bed with Gramma Claire she managed to fall asleep, only to wake up before 8:30 talking a mile a minute picking up where she left off. And so, for the 3rd time, we all said "MERRY CHRISTMAS!"