Strange, but Fun

"Strange, but Fun" describes Christmas this year. The strangeness mostly comes from the enormous quantities of snow that have fallen. I have lost track of the number of separate snowstorms we have had over the past weeks. I ended up walking 2 miles to go to my doctor's appointment and walking to several grocery stores. We built a snow arch, went sledding, and even had a bit of a snowball fight.


We finally dared the roads on December 23rd in order to spend Christmas with my family (especially since my siblings were all in town). We slipped and slid several times, especially where the ice was thick and bumpy on the freeway entrance ramp. I am very glad that I didn't have to do any of the driving - I would have given up once I felt the car slide in our home street. We made it safely, stopping for 10 minutes to dig ourselves out a parking spot in the soft snow so that we could park along the flat part of the street.

Downtown Bellevue has a nifty street presentation with a drum line, costumed characters, songs, lights, and bubbles meant to look like snow. The girls went together to Snowflake Lane - my niece loved it, especially the princess who smiled and waved to all the little girls.



I stopped to pick up my husband's new suit (which had been ready for over a week but we couldn't get to the mall through all the snow). My mom's all-wheel drive car works so much better in snow than our little tiny car.

On Christmas Eve we relaxed and played in the morning, and then we started hustling to get ready for the big dinner. My brother went to pick up my brother- and sister-in-law so that we could have a big group all together on this snowy holiday. I finally wrapped all of our gifts and put them out under the tree. Actually, my favorite part was wrapping a big empty box for my sister's family becase I had already sent her gift to her house. My niece was so surprised this morning to unwrap a big empty box! She immediately climbed inside and started playing.

Our neighbor came over for Christmas Eve dinner - the snow kept a lot of people from their families this year. I had just gone out to the street to pick up the mail (wow - the USPS really does deliver in any weather) when the gentleman arrived. I showed him in the front door and headed downstairs. But I forgot to take off my snowboots first. Wet snowboots and a slippery hardwood floor ... I slipped and bumped down the half-flight of steps. I was pretty shaken up, but it looks like I'm just going to have a pretty good set of bruises. Lesson learned.

Christmas Eve dinner was ham, brown rice, homemade rolls, green salad and marshmallow fruit salad. My niece decided she didn't want to eat dinner, but she did want to sit on my lap and talk to me / help me eat my dinner...it was a little messy, but I managed to get some food for myself. I cracked up when she let out a little tiny burp and whispered "excuse me" to me; then she turned to the whole table and exlaimed, "I burped big, and I said 'Excuse Me' Mommy!"

Our neighbor was full of great stories from his work as an engineer: my favorite was when he was working on a bridge and a truck full of beehives rolled over nearby. The entire bridge crew jumped into the (shallow) river. By the time the bees were willing to leave them alone, the bridge deck had sunk and the concrete had to be removed so they could do the work all over again.

We acted out the Christmas story (my niece calls it Jesus' Happy Birthday), sang Christmas songs, ate dessert, and played games. My sister-in-law and I made really delicious rolls and left them to rise for Christmas morning breakfast. We all headed to bed. The next morning I woke up before the crowd, so I helped my mom finish cooking breakfast. The rolls turned out to be a favorite new tradition!

When my niece woke up, everybody woke up. She was incredibly excited for Christmas morning. We all opened our stockings, ate breakfast (egg and sausage casserole, sticky rolls, waffles, grapefruit, and juice), and then opened gifts. My niece was very helpful - sometimes she even brought us our gifts before she started unwrapping them. Seriously though, she did enjoy helping the rest of us almost as much as she enjoyed her own gifts.

My sister's family left by 1:00 to go to her in-laws. We packed up and left a few hours later. We got stuck in the 8-inches of slush on my mom's street, but we got out without too much trouble - we just hopped out and pushed the car until it had enough momentum to make it to the end of the street. The next road was still slushy, but after that we made it to a main road where the snowplows had come. The freeways were clear, but when we turned into the apartment complex where my brother-and sister-in-law lived we knew our trip was over. We had to push the car most of the way through the parking-lot, and we had to dig out a "guest" parking space so that we could try to put the car in there. We burned a little rubber, but finally three of us pushed the car into the spot.


So tonight we're staying here. Playing games and having fun with family - thanks to our hosts for putting us up for the night!