The Christmas we lost power

There was the Christmas Santa almost didn't come--the year I was 7 and Mom didn't have much money.

There was the year my family got the stomach bug, when I was 15.

There was the year Dave and I celebrated in an empty house with no presents because we were poor and his household goods hadn't yet reached Florida.....that was 2002.

This year was the year power went out and ruined Christmas dinner.  We had to battle to get Ben to nap so our ham was a bit delayed.  Ben had finally fallen asleep when the power went out at 4pm.  Ben immediately woke up as his white noise machine turned off.  We left the ham in the oven, hoping the power would come back on any minute.  Our power had gone out for seconds at a time at least 5 times on Christmas Eve.  After about an hour, Dave walked to the neighbor to borrow matches so we could light candles and a fire.  We don't have smart phones so we had no internet and had no clue if there were any food options iopen on Christmas.  Our neighbors that we borrowed matches from drove around for an hour only to find nothing open.  In hour two, another neighbor stopped by to warn us that it might be quite a long time as power was out across the valley.  He invited us to his house as he has a generator.  Shortly after that, I noticed Ben's hands were ice cold and I was shivering.  Ben got bundled in long john's, then a cotton sleeper, and last a fleece sleeper.  I put layers on.  Liam wore a fleece sweathsirt with his hood up. 

Somewhere in there, we ate cold ham, fruit snacks, and craisins.  Liam played with his train table by camping light.  Ben played with his play food by the fire.  Around 7pm, I asked Liam to go potty as he'd be going to bed soon.  Ben immediately said "night night?" and ran for his bedroom.  We went through the boys bedtime routine in the dark.  Ben kept crying without his white noise playing. Around 8pm, the power started flickering.  Finally it came back on.  Ben didn't fall asleep until afteer 9pm.  Our ham was ruined.  There was no wonderful Christmas dinner.  Ben was up early today and is a tired cranky mess this morning.

Someday this will be a funny family memory....the Christmas without power, but this year I could have done with some normalcy.

Edited....I just read last year's Christmas Eve post found here: Christmas 2009 and I had to laugh.  I got what I wanted this year--Dave home and Liam talking and able to tell me what he wanted for Christmas.  I never specified that I wanted power for Christmas this year. ;-)