Christmas Weather

The weather for Christmas can range from very cold to not so cold. How's that for an observation. We've had Christmases where it was bitter cold and we've had it 70° on Christmas. Now the 70° for Christmas is rare. I think I was in college the Christmas that it was that warm.

We aren’t guaranteed snow on Christmas Day. Two years ago we got snow starting during the afternoon on Christmas Day. The year Kathleen was born we got lots of snow before Christmas and it was still around for Christmas. It definitely snowed the day she was born through the next day. We should have named her Sarah Nicole Olivia Whitney and called her "Snow" for short.

Definitely the worst weather we had for Christmas that I recall was in 1998. It was our first year here at Bethia. On Christmas Eve we got an horrendous ice storm. It started early that morning and continued to ice through the day. Our electricity went out early in the day. We weren't able to leave the house because the ice was so bad. We were living in the Bethia House which was the parsonage at the time. It didn't have any backup heat such as a fireplace or anything. So once the power went out, it started to get very cold. Our house we still owned at the time in the west end never lost power but we couldn’t get to it because of the ice. We spent the day cuddled up with each other for warmth. We were on my bed, lots of the time under the covers. No cooking, no Christmas music playing, no TV. But we played board games, we talked, we spent lots of time looking out the window at the ice falling. Ice makes a lot of noise when it hits the ground or the rooftop or whatever surface it hits. At the time Kathleen was 9, Daniel 4 and Charlsley 1.

I usually do a lot of cooking on Christmas Eve but not that year. Christmas Eve night of course all the services at church were cancelled. Our Christmas Eve dinner consisted of ham sandwiches, chips, Christmas cookies and juice or soda. Not a lot you can do without electricity when it comes to meal preparation. I guess if we had a fireplace we could have cooked something but the ham sandwiches were just fine. Instead of the usual Christmas pajamas the kids receive on Christmas Eve, the kids went to bed that night in sweatshirts, sweatpants and layers. In fact the Christmas pajamas may have been under the sweats, I don't remember. But we were going for warmth. About 11:30pm we heard trucks out on the road. We ran to the door to see if it was the power company. It was not, it was the tree people. That was a good thing. Somehow we knew but I don't remember where we gained this knowledge, that if it was the tree company then the power company wasn't far behind. The tree company came first to get limbs off the lines, Then the power company wasn't far behind to repair the line. Maybe it was the tree people that told us that.

We went out to offer the tree people something to eat. I didn't have a lot to offer but I offered what I had. They weren't interested in ham sandwiches but they were definitely interested in Christmas cookies. I asked them what they wanted to drink. They wanted Pepsi. You're kidding, you want a cold soda out here in this frigid weather. I’m not sure why that surprises me being the diet coke addict that I am. I didn't have anything warm to offer them anyway. But we took them a container of cookies and Pepsi. We were very blessed to get our power back on during the night. I think it was around 3:00 or so that the power came on. Many people we knew were without power up to 7 days. While the weather was certainly frightful, the family time was delightful.

Christmas morning I was up early to get the turkey in the oven so it could get cooked since I had a lot of other cooking to do. The turkey usually gets cooked on the 24th. Fortunately it wasn't in the oven half cooked when the power went off the day before. God bless those workers out spending their Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and beyond removing tree limbs and restoring power to so many homes without electricity. I'm sure they felt like they missed Christmas.

The Sunday after Christmas Jay's sermon theme was, did you miss Christmas. That had been planned well ahead of the ice storm. He meant did you miss the meaning of Christmas in all the hustle and bustle. But so many people related to that on many levels.

So I wonder what the weather will be like for Christmas this year. So far we have had some really warm days and some quite cold so far. I haven't heard any extended forecast for Christmas yet.

My ideal weather for Christmas would be just a light snow that doesn't affect the road conditions so people can get where they need to go. Enough snow to fall gracefully on the tree limbs and the grass. I like it cold for Christmas - it just seems that Christmas and cold go together. But if it's warmer that's ok.

So snow is good, cold is good, even warmer than normal is ok. But ice - hmmm - no thanks!