Christmas Week & Heart Update
Hi everyone!
Today wrapped up a historic Christmas for Portland, Oregon. The SNOWIEST Christmas ever, biggest snow fall total for a storm period in more than 40 years, and so on it goes.
Snow in Portland changes EVERYTHING.
Portland literally slides to a stop with as little as 1-2 inches of snow, especially if it doesn’t melt away in a few hours as it typically will, IF it snows. It sure did the past week.
Virtually everyone stayed home except on December 23rd and 24th when we had our last chance to get to a store before a new storm threatened. I’m certain there will be many Portland retailers that now close due to the combination of snow and economic conditions.
The past week at our house– Our first big surprise– Alec comes home!
Thursday morning, Shannon walks in my room with her “What are you doing?” question. This is the question asked in the way actually meaning, “Dad, I need you to stop everything and take me somewhere”. She sensed that. “So, I have an early Christmas present for you. Alec just arrived at the airport.”
Yay! We all bundled up, drove to PDX to see our little 25 year guy!
Overnighter Extended!
Originally our daughter, son-in law and grandsons were going to join us for Christmas Eve only. Instead, Heather and the boys came up for an early overnight after Alec arrived Thursday. Snow started falling a few hours later… and on into the next morning.
Suddenly, they were snowed for the duration. When their power and water were down back at home a day, our son-in-law soon joined us! We ended up with a dream Christmas. All our family at home at once!
We THOUGHT our grandsons had fully recovered from an early bout last week. Wrong!
I was first to fall after that initial grandfatherly-grandson exchange of Lewis’ and Evander’s goopy kisses. Six hours later I wretched my way into intestinal oblivion, still filled with the joy of having my little guys near by– it was worth the price.
Kathy joined me 12 hours later, then Alec, and finally Shannon. She was the one that stuck it out like Smith Wigglesworth on a mission and continued to “refuse” nausea forcing herself to do all the Christmassy things she had planned.
Myself? I succumbed to 3 days of bed! –Brave man of God!
We all made it more or less out of the woods by Christmas Eve to enjoy a quiet meal together with some activities and games. It was great except we had to cancel invitations for some of the guys in our community group to join the family while our yellow flag of flu quarantine flew. Better safe than sorry though– trust me, this was a bad one.
Christmas Day we again stayed in sharing the moments together including traditional Dutch Babies breakfast, assorted Norwegian mostly raw salmon and herring tasties, a few cookies and lots of games and Christmas music.
The babies have all gone home now. It’s a bit quieter and we miss them all!
My Heart Update
When our snow hit followed by the 3 day flu, my walks pretty much went on hold. We have snow everywhere outside. Unfortunately, I am not well equipped for trekking through that stuff much these days. Instead I’ve gone out for measured periods of light snow shoveling workouts instead. I figured if it was broken up into checks across hours and days, it would be a safe activity.
I’m still here and haven’t had to resort to taking a nitro tablets or anything, so success.
I’m actually feeling better and better.
Hopefully the snow will be washed away in a day or two so walks can resume.
Author Profile: Vic is Oregon and Pacific Northwest Area Director for Chi Alpha Campus Ministries, part of the Leadership team of FOCUS at Portland State University, a writer, blogger, usually an INFP (with "E" overtones), a long time resident of urban inner southeast Portland, the husband of one wife for more than 30 years, a Dad, grandfather, and mentor & friend to all kinds of young adults. Read more from this author
