Yesterday was Christmas Eve Eve and once upon a time I envisioned a peaceful day of wrapping and Christmas movies solo. But then I found out Jacob had the entire week before Christmas off, and then the weather changed everything else. Carter's last day of school was canceled, and that was only the beginning of the havoc the weather was going to wreak on Christmas in Western New York this year. Winter Storm Elliott decided to crash the party...and in some cases quite literally as cars and trees crashed in its wrath.
I started writing this post on Christmas Eve Eve morning, just as the winds were whipping up and the snow was starting. The winds instantly got scary, and we were already hearing how bad Buffalo was getting hit. I was so sad and frustrated because it was likely going to have a major impact on our holiday, but there were still a lot of unknowns so the limbo was driving me nuts at the time.
I suppose we've been super lucky all these years, as we've never really had a holiday-threatening storm. For all the lake effect and other craziness this time of year, there's never been a time that I can recall where we had to seriously consider not traveling because of weather. We've gotten hit a few times while we've been there, maybe a foot or two overnight on Christmas Eve, but nothing that actually altered any plans. But this year--it figures, right, after two odd COVID Christmases--the weather decided to go absolutely bananas--like historically bad, with elements on par with the Blizzard of '77.
Winds here got up around 68mph, and areas of Buffalo were worse. My parents got over two feet of snow and drifts are as tall as grown adults. We got barely enough snow to cover the grass because of how it blew, but the winds are still a bit gusty 36 hours in. It's been nearly a constant whiteout throughout much of Buffalo for the last two days. Like, zero visibility...for hours. Oh, and all of this was on top of over an inch of rain that flash froze within a matter of hours, and the temperature has been in the teens or lower since, with negative wind chills. Pressure readings were on par with hurricanes. Waves were nearing 30 feet on Lake Erie, which seems unreal, and most of the shore is completely iced over. Wegmans and Tops closed yesterday through Monday morning, which is basically unheard of. The last-minute Christmas Eve shopping rush was impossible, and the malls were closed anyway. Everything came to a standstill. People have been comparing it to that "Day After Tomorrow" movie, which is super freaky but not entirely inaccurate. And of course this is all happening right smack in the middle of Christmas. It would have been bad enough any other time, but it hit right in time for all the holiday travel so it's a complete nightmare scenario for so many reasons.
A couple hours after I started this post and abandoned it to get back to wrapping, our power went out. It stayed out for about 4-1/2 hours before miraculously coming back on just as we had loaded our fridge food into coolers to leave on the porch. We were thinking we might head to my cousin Lori's as she had offered, since the house was getting cold and we needed to pick up food for dinner and charge phones, so we were taking care of the fridge before we left because four hours is supposedly the safety standard. But then it came back just as I was putting on boots to put the coolers on the porch and miraculously stayed on. Just in time, because the natives were getting restless around here! It was definitely not the day we were expecting. I felt so lucky ours came on and we got to have a normal night, especially since I had cinnamon rolls to make!
We had blustery conditions last night, but nothing compared to what I kept seeing from my parents and other folks in WNY. And today brought a whole new level of hell as the band shifted north and hit my parents head on. It was relentless. So many people were trapped last night into today, to the point everyone is fully expecting a lot of dead people in cars to be discovered over the coming days. Essential workers can't get in, an estimated 2/3 of emergency vehicles were stuck, and things have continued to be generally impassable and awful. The northtowns cleared tonight, but I don't think it will be enough time to clear enough out for us to go tomorrow morning, which was already our Plan B. With the storm warnings expiring Christmas morning we figured tomorrow would be doable, but now that's looking far less likely given the state of the roads and the amount of snow. My parents probably got nearly triple what they were supposed to get, and the drifts are unreal. I'm not sure we'll get in their driveway, let alone get through all of the roads. There are a lot of major routes that I think will get cleared, and I feel like the city plows can get through most areas overnight, but the Thruway is still closed and part of it is still being impacted by the band in its new position. So, time will likely be limited once it finally fades and I don't think things will end up working out.
Normally we do Craig's family on Christmas Eve and my family on Christmas Day, but it became clear pretty quickly that Craig's family was going to be inaccessible since they were predicting three feet there. So we figured, do Christmas as usual with my family and stay to Monday when Craig's family would likely be more accessible. But now even that scenario looks unlikely so I'm guessing we might just need to make New Year's the new Christmas. But I feel bad because I want to get to my parents to help them, just as much as I'd like to be there to do Christmas stuff. I'm most annoyed because of the food. Everything is closed so I can't get Christmas dinner fixings and Jacob can't eat Chinese food, so I'm not sure what we're going to do. We had lobster tonight because it was the quickest thing I had access to for a nice dinner--and what holiday is much more lobster-worthy?--but it's become much more apparent how hard it might be to get anywhere tomorrow so now I'm annoyed because I'm not sure what we can eat that feels even a tiny bit special. And even though the weather is fine here, all the grocery stores are closed for the holiday now. Had I known earlier when we stopped at Wegmans after church today, I would have done things very differently.
I'm trying to stay positive, but it's getting harder. We did well with our COVID Christmas because it was different and I was hellbent on making it good since we were finally getting to find out what Christmas at home looked like. But I never wanted to have to do it again, and here we are, so I'm feeling a bit bummed. I've realized that part of what makes Christmas special is that once it really gets rolling, we get a bit of a magical break from our normal existence. We are launched into two days of presents and family, we get a change of scenery, I leave behind the cleaning and dishes, and the boys have way less to argue about. But now we're in the midst of likely two more days at home of the same old, same old--annoying video games and YouTube videos, bickering boys, Craig sneaking off to take naps (which annoys the boys and frustrates me in the middle of a long series of tasks that I can't escape), and all the stuff I need to be doing even though I was looking forward to a couple days away from it all. And because the boys insisted on sticking to our tradition of Christmas Eve morning gift opening (which seemed wise enough if we were leaving early-ish on Christmas), now we're facing a very long day of more of the same stuff when it was supposed to be something special. I'm sure we'll try to find some good movies and I'll figure out something to eat and hopefully whip up some snacks, but it definitely won't be the same and won't have even the same sort of magic that our COVID Christmas did. As I mentioned in my last post, I've also realized through COVID how short time is, and now that we're going on three messed up Christmases, it's starting to add up. It's basically 1/3 of Carter's coherent Christmases, and more than 1/5 of Jacob's. They've grown and changed so much since our last "normal" one and now there's no end in sight again--another 364 days before we can attempt to get back to a normal holiday.
Well, it's time to go to bed and attempt to wake up at a reasonable time to figure out what our Christmas will actually hold. I'll do a whole separate post about the details of the holiday--what's already taken place and what's yet to happen--but in the meantime, have a Merry Christmas!
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