Lights Out

Christmas was different this year.
Why? Because we spent a lot of it without electricity.
That's right. I said no electricity.
Here's the story...
(it's long, but worth a read)
On Christmas Eve around 3pm the lights went out. We weren't too terribly concerned...at first. We found things to do around the house, but as dinner time neared we realized that cooking without electricity would be a challenge. Luckily the stove was gas - it just needed to be lit. Kudos to mom for making the entire meal by flashlight. We ate dinner by the light of about ten candles, which was kind of fun actually.

At about 8pm the lights came back on. YAY! We all rushed to turn on lights, check email, watch TV and clean up the kitchen. About 15 minutes later the power failed again. Are you kidding me? When Stan called, he found out that it might be out for the rest of the night. Decisions had to be made. The heat didn't work without electricity so the house was getting colder despite the warm fire in the family room. The food in the fridge and freezer would soon begin to spoil. And how would be cook Christmas day meals without power? What were we going to do?

To add insult to injury, the homes directly across the street still had their power! We sat in our dark house looking longingly at the neighbor's beautifully lit Christmas tree waiting for our lights to come back on.

Without much left to do, we got ready for bed. We packed the food into the garage and even buried some under the snow outside hoping to preserve it. We gathered together extra blankets. We went to bed hoping to wake up to a house with electricity.

No such luck.
We woke up to a still dark, very chilly house.
After a lot of thought, we decided to call Heidi and tell her not to come since we had no heat. Literally, while mom was on the phone with her the power came back on. But we weren't sure it would stay on - especially after last night.

But it did.
And we were grateful. For something we usually take for granted. Electricity.