Snowed In For Far Too Long

Church was cancelled yesterday.  In fact, our whole stake (in case you know what that means...) didn't have church.  For two weeks in a row, we have had no church.  I really, really, really miss going to church...especially this time of year.  We missed our Christmas program and missed hearing my girls sing.  I was disappointed about missing the Messiah sing-a-long.  I LOVE the Messiah and I have been singing along with the CD since Halloween.  It's been hard for me to focus on the real meaning of Christmas when I've trapped in my house.

The girls have no interest in playing in the snow any more.  It is just too deep and too cold.  We have over two feet of snow.  We are trying to stay warm in our house where the power keeps going on and off.  It was off last night and came on this morning.  This is the third morning we have been welcomed by no electricity and a cold house.  During the day, the power goes on and off.  I haven't bothered to fix the blinking clocks because I know the power will go off again soon.

Thank goodness the longest we have been without power was 12 hours.  I remember being without power for 6 days two years ago and it was miserable.  The only difference two years ago was that I was able to drive to a neighboring town with electricity and get a motel room.

I love electricity.  I was so excited to do the laundry when the power came on this morning.  I really love heat.  I really love Christmas lights and music.  I love to cross stitch with the lights on.  I tried to cross stitch by candlelight this morning and it was very hard.

Being forced to stay home has hidden blessings.  My girls have played together so nicely.  We have enjoyed family card games, tickle monster games, Polly Pockets, sledding, etc.  It has been like forced bonding time.  We have bonded nicely this past week.

When we woke up to no electricity on Sunday, I told the girls that we wouldn't miss the heat because we could bundle up.  I told them how fun it would be to wear gloves and hats in the house.  I told them we wouldn't miss our microwave because we could have yummy tuna sandwiches.  The only thing I was really missing was the Christmas music.  I told the girls we had to sing Christmas songs because the CD player wouldn't work without electricity.  We sang a bunch of carols then ended up getting silly and changing the lyrics to familiar carols.

Here is the result of one of our silly songs: