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 the children being stuck inside the house - and likely bored, I feared  - for days. 
       But in fact, we all did fine. We built gingerbread houses. 

        We baked cookies.

        We 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 also 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.

       My daughter and son-in-law settled into their work,  ​

...and my grand daughters seemed to find plenty to do, content to play, 

...(the nativity Naciemento being fair game),

...help with the chores,

...and otherwise occupy themselves around the house.

       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.

       My daughter 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 she did try it, while I watched from the backdoor and my grand daughter filmed the event.

      And a couple of subsequent times our two young Californians wanted to try going outdoors - very briefly, as it turned out  - into the blue cold, I suppose just for the experience.      

      Or perhaps it was that they liked 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.
           Now we were ready to venture out to Kroger's to replenish out provisions,

...which we needed to do, as we'd invited Tommy and Emily over for dinner on Wednesday night.

...with their poochies, Ronan and Suzy.

        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 loved ones to return home to Los Angeles.   

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