Ho Ho Hum

We lost power for most of the day last Sunday.

I had just started frying the sausage for our breakfast burritos when it went out.

“Maybe it will just be for a few minutes?” I said hopefully to my daughter.

It was not.

A power outage can really ruin your day.

Like you go from being hopeful and planning all the things you get to do (along with a few pesky things you have to do), when suddenly you can’t do much of anything. Can’t pop popcorn. Can’t have your Sunday afternoon movie marathon. Can’t do laundry. Or vacuum. And you shouldn’t open the refrigerator or freezer too much, because you need to conserve the cold that is in there, in case the power is out for a long time. Unless you want to take everything out and put it in the ice chest and bury it in the snow. Because there is snow outside, a few inches, that fell overnight. Which maybe explains why there was a power outage.

Of course there were lots of things that could have been done if I was in the right frame of mind.  You don’t need electricity to wrap Christmas presents. Or get the Christmas tree out of the shed and put it up.  We could have hung a few ornaments and been extra impressed when the power finally came back and the tree lights twinkled on. (The lights are always my favorite part of our Christmas tree.)

But when the power went away last Sunday, so did my Christmas spirit. My daughter and I sat on the couch in front of the fire and looked at each other glumly.

Eventually we read our books. And stayed very close to the fire, because it was cold in the house. My daughter started a novel that I had brought home from the library. I plowed through a book that I probably would never have finished reading if the power hadn’t gone out.

The power came back late that day. I was grateful, since some of our neighbors were still without it for another day or so. Last year during late December’s Stormageddon, we lost power for nine days. Compared to that, this was nothing. Just a blip. My daughter was home for Christmas break last year when the power went out for so long. She was sitting at the kitchen table with me when it went out last week.

“I don’t think I’m coming home for Christmas ever again,” she said.

My friend’s son attends school in Montana. He told her, “I wish we were in Montana. They know how to do snow there.”

Power outages are so not fun.

Today? One week before Christmas? Here is my “ho ho hum” update:

We still have not put up the Christmas tree. I still have not wrapped even one present. Maybe today is the day? It could happen! Especially if the power stays on.

But honestly?

Feels funny complaining about this. Even a little. I’m still so sad about the passing of my son’s friend that I wrote about last week. I drive by the rest area where he perished every day, sometimes more than once. Each time now, I look over and see the cars parked out front, people relaxing and resting, and wonder how everything went so wrong for him there.

My daughter is home from college and reading on the couch. My son finished his final exams and is looking forward to Christmas break. We are together, most days with electricity, occasionally without.  But this being together? It’s what matters most. Even if the Christmas tree never makes it out of the shed. Even if none of our gifts ever get wrapped. Even if “ho ho hum” is the most Christmas spirit I manage to muster this year.