December 24th, Christmas and ICE!!!!

So the 24th was here - Ira and I started Christmas day cooking prep! She was a HUGE help - she was so wonderful in the kitchen - wanting to help and learn everything. We got the dressing made, the turkey prepped, the cranberry salad done, the broccoli casserole made. Everything was ready for early Christmas morning oven time! Then we all relaxed - finished a little last minute wrapping - and played games - w/ Ira continually "outfoxing" Tom w/ her gaming skills - he said she cheated - she and I laughed and said he was just "slow"!!! So Christmas Eve - not a creature was stiring - but the ice started falling and the trees began crashing!!! Tom and I were blown away at this whole last weeks worth of weather. Everything was saying this was the worst in over 10 years between amounts of snow, number of snow days and now this HUGE ice storm the likes of which we have never seen. We awoke early Christmas morning to what was fast looking like a war zone - trees still coming down everywhere and no electricity!!! The County was declared a state of emergency, 50% of all roads were closed - it was that bad - trees across our driveway - couldn't get out if we wanted to. I could barely let the dogs out for safety reasons due to falling trees. Thank goodness for our generator, but something went wrong w/ the gas oven hook up and so no turkey, no dressing, etc! But we had heat, water and cooktop - so Christmas morning went on. I'm not sure Ira even realized the power problem nor did she understand the traditional dinner - so we proceeded to have Christmas minus the turkey! It was a most amazing day - and Ira loved her gifts, but what was so moving was how much pleasure she took in us getting our gifts as well. Plus, she got a huge kick out of the dogs "opening" their gifts!!!! It was priceless! We had one fantastic day - in spite of the ice storm and still just sat in awe of her acceptance of being "stuck" in with us for so long. She did not have amusement parks, outings, tons of shopping etc., just us as a family and quite frankly the true meaning of Christmas. We were afraid she would be miserable, but all of the horrible weather turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it afforded us more time to bond, learn each other, to relate and to commit to becoming a family. Blessings come in all forms - even ice storms!