First of all, Christmas has already come and gone in my house. Kids live afar, families are complicated, so we celebrated with the whole famn damily thus weekend. It was a blast.

But, how did this weekend pop up so fast? I look forward to it all year long and suddenly it was here. It arrived in the middle of an ice storm, during which our county was in a state of emergency and travel was strongly discouraged due to iced roads and fallen trees and power lines.

As a result, we stayed inside for 36 hours before we broke out and went skeet shooting and sledding, wearing microspikes and snowshoes. And a good time was had by all.

To keep things simple we had our first white elephant gift exchange. I supplemented it with a white elephant knitting exchange. I included four hats, two woven scarves and a rope trivet. Gifts were stolen, trades were made, everyone was happy and it warmed my heart.

We spent three nights (short for me since I went to bed after 2) in the cabin to make room in the house and I slept like a baby. The wood stove kept us warm in the loft, while I heard trees cracking outside and coyotes howling in the woods.

And now they’ve headed off to other family gatherings, the house is quiet and only the ice remains.

I’m happy I received a digital photo frame, which already has this year’s pictures to make me smile.