Christmas, Delayed

This year we planned Christmas to be smaller and more low-key than any previous years. Little did we know precisely what that would mean, and that Christmas would be delayed not once, but twice.

We put the tree up on Christmas Eve but decided to wait until Christmas Day to finish decorating. Meanwhile, the winter storms kept coming. Seattle and Portland were continually blanketed with snow and ice, crippling the cities. We certainly were getting our fair share as well. Earlier in the day on Christmas Eve I had gone out to plow the driveway only to discover that I had neglected to plug in the engine block heater on the tractor. Diesels don't like cold weather, and they show their displeasure by not starting. So I plugged it in and had planned to plow the following day. Yes, snow plowing on Christmas Day. But it gets worse.

At 2am Christmas morning we awoke not to the sound of a crying baby - thankfully that is becoming more rare - but rather the sounds of beeping. We instantly recognized them as the "warning" bells on the UPS units that protect our electronic equipment. Power outage! Corinne, always a few steps ahead of me in terms of disaster planning, pauses for a few moments and says something like: "I hate to even mention it, but do you think you should try to start the tractor?" Where we are, a power outage in December could last for a few hours or a few days. As cold as it was, the tractor would never start without the electricity to heat the engine. And without the tractor, we could be snowed in for quite some time. After a few moments trying to come up with an alternative plan, I get out of bed, put on my gear and trudge out to the tractor at 2:30am to try to plow.

The tractor still won't start. So I head back to bed, and we both start to stress a bit about what that could mean. Somehow we managed to fall back asleep.

Thankfully, the power returned at about 8am on Christmas morning. A quick call to Reidar confirmed what I had been thinking, which is that the battery probably needed a stronger charge in order to start in these temps. A few more hours on both the battery charger and the engine block heater fixed the tractor's woes, and the driveway was clear again. But we decided to postpone celebrating Christmas to the following day, hoping for a more auspicious start. Christmas would officially be celebrated on December 26th this year. After all, Rocket doesn't know the difference.

The two guests we were sure we would have for Christmas were Donna and Leif. But that wasn't working out so well either. Donna had planned to drive down to visit us on Christmas day, but she had been stuck on Mercer Island for several days. It wasn't looking very good for her to get out on Christmas either. Leif, on the other hand, had been stuck in Portland when I-84 closed for three days. He was still there.

December 26th arrived and we were still by ourselves. We had a few more brief (several minutes to an hour) power outages, but nothing lasting. So we took a walk. By this point the weather was starting to look up, and I-84 had re-opened. Donna was going to take the train to Portland, traveling with Taryn who was heading to Eugene to spend time with David's family. When Donna arrived in Portland she would be met by Leif, and then the two of them would head our way and be here by dinner. In theory.

Train travel being what it is in this country, Donna's train didn't arrive in Portland until nighttime, so she and Leif opted to stay there for the night. We decided to delay Christmas once again so that they could share in Anders's first Christmas.

Finally, late on the morning of December 27th, our guests arrived! Christmas was saved!

This year we convinced both of our families to forgo the massive gift-giving that usually occurs at Christmas. Instead we went with a "kids only" approach, so virtually all of the gifts under the tree were for Anders. After all, we had already gotten our big gift for this year:

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket