Our White And Blue Christmas

...Continued from previous post:
       And so, Columbus, Ohio, having been hit along with much of the rest of the country with the arctic blast event that will go down in meteorological history as the  bomb cyclone of 2022,

...we woke up on December 23 to several inches of snow, a temperature of minus 7 degrees, and a warning from the National Weather Service to stay behind our ice-covered doors for the next three days. 

       Now, having a white Christmas is nice;

...but I wondered how well we'd do with a blue-from-the-cold, frozen-in Christmas, especially with everyone being stuck inside the house - and likely bored, I feared  - for days. 
       But in fact, we all did fine. We built gingerbread houses, 

...baked lots of cookies, and decorated the tree.

     And though we couldn't set out  luminaries on our street as we do every Christmas Eve,

... I did burn a bayberry candle down to the socket, as I do every Christmas Eve, and as my mother did every Christmas Eve as well, to bring good luck in the new year.

        We did Christmas, with presents for the children,

...but not the adults, as we've subscribed to the joy of Christmas non-gifting for years.         
     We watched movies, we cooked, 

     We ate,       

...and ate,

...and ate, the Christmas Eve feast,

...the big Christmas breakfast,

...the Christmas dinner,

...and all the other meals we shared.

       And, in spite of the admonition against going outdoors, everybody - except me - ventured out into the sub-zero, turn-you-blue weather to shovel our driveway,

...as well as the driveways of a few elderly neighbors.

       Someone had heard of and wanted to try the trick of tossing a pan of boiling water into freezing air so that the water turns immediately to snow. So they did try it, while I watched from the backdoor..

      Then everyone enjoyed coming back inside and pulling a chair up to the fireplace - which I kept burning all day during the cold days - to get warm.       

            And somehow the magic happened.

         On Monday, the day after Christmas, the worst of the fallout from the bomb cyclone began sweeping out nearly as quickly as it had swept in, and over the next three days the temperature climbed into the teens to the 20's, 30's, and, by Wednesday, to the low 40's.

        Yesterday, Thursday, December 29, six days after the bomb cyclone plunged Columbus into a deep blue freeze covered by a white blanket of ice and snow, the sun shone brightly and the temperature was in the low 50's. And it was time for our guests to return home.   

         Our white Christmas was over. And I was feeling a little blue.