Twas the Freeze Before Christmas Letter 2007

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care… in hopes they would dry, so that we could wear.

 As you may know, as part of our pre-Christmas festivities the family took part in the 2007 Oklahoma Freeze and during our three days of forced power outage, we had abundant time to reflect on the blessings of the season. We discovered the blessings of natural gas fireplaces late in the first twelve hours but took another two hours to recognize the necessity of an open fireplace flue.





  While I in my kerchief and they in their caps all settled down for a long winters nap, we explore the benefits of authentic down comfort (King-sized is not big enough, nor are three layers thick.)


The moon on the breast of new fallen snow had nothing on the candelabra we had goin’ on inside. We will never again disparage Dave’s fetish for flashlights. We revisited family togetherness while reading classic literature by candlelight. (Dave Barry may be surprised to find himself in this category) and we renewed the joys of handicrafts by headlamp to stave off boredom. (Dia made hats, hats, and hats galore.)

  When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter… we marveled that in spite of the avalanche of tree limbs clamoring outside to abandon their trunks and cascade with a thump to the ground, we received no damage to rooftops or vehicles. However, fences were not withstanding.

Visions of sugarplums danced in our heads as we foraged from the freezer, struck up the gas stove and stacked the outdoor patio table with refrigerator stock. Camp food tastes ever so much better anyway.

Dressed all in fleece from our head to our foot, we like St. Nickolas, all wore the soot. After chopping branches down and hauling limbs away to uncover downed power lines (Yes, I realize now that the lines could have been live,) we learned to wear natural fibers that dry quickly and absorb some serious filth. The whole Christmas thing that started with stockings hung up to dry was once someone's daily life and I would rather not return to it. There is nothing quite like warm showers, hot food and outside contact. For us, we learned that desperate times result in … blessed measures.

You will hear us exclaim as we drive out of sight, but not in "Firebird--the Acura" because the day school resumes, Dia is t-boned by a Porche boxter on the way home from seminary.  So sad to have the car we bought when she was a baby gone.  

Yet amidst all, we are blessed by the wonder and beauty of our Saviors birth.  So, Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night!

 Love, the Darceys

Day 2, December Ice Storm

We spent the evening eating dinner by candle light and reading Dave Berry’s narrative of the Utah Winter Olympics. He made fun of the Ho Ho Gourmet’s name, after that the daughter escaped to a friend’s (powered-up) house for a hot shower sleepover.

Everyone has their headlamps on. No one is making fun of Dave’s fondness for flashlights and headlights now. And all the used candles that I wanted to throw out but didn’t are now being put to good use.

It seems that about two out every three houses do not have power throughout all of the city. Pretty overwhelming. It is ironic to live in a neighborhood (some of you who have visited here know what I’m talking about…) of gigantic mondo mansions who have power and running billions of gigawatts for his Christmas decorations and you’re sitting there across the street, the poor relative, with no power at all. We saw this in quite a few places.

We spent the night in our bedroom….interior house temp was 56 degrees this morning….so livable. Kids are out of school today again. Ian gets to work on a limb that fell on the back driveway, right where we normally park the Acura and pickup, but we moved them right before the limb crashed. It has trapped the van in the garage and I think of everyone who has only one vehicle, trapped.

Dave's input:

Lost quite a few limbs and trees. The 100 foot birch and maple by the back driveway are probably shot. Spent quite a bit of time knocking ice off limbs last night to try and save some more trees over back deck and front door.
Seemed to help.

Temps are warming and it is melting just in time for another round tonight.

Generators are all sold out….expecting more shipments today.
Don’t know if should buy one or not……at this pt, still saying 7 – 10 days…but managing ok.

Back to Terina: Dave seems to have an aversion to personal pronouns.

Day 2, We spent the evening eating dinner by candle light and reading Dave Berry’s narrative of the Utah Winter Olympics. He made fun of the Ho Ho Gourmet’s name, then the daughter
escaped to a friend’s house for a hotshower/sleepover.

Everyone has their headlamps on. No one is making fun of Dave’s fondness for flashlights and headlights now. And all the candles that Terina wanted to throw out but didn’t are now being put to good use.

It seems that two out every three houses do not have power throughout all of the city. Pretty overwhelming. Its sad, though, to be in a neighborhood (some of you who have visited here know what I’m talking about…) of gigantic mondo Mcmansions running billions of gigawatts for his Christmas decorations and you’re sitting there with no power at all. We saw this in quite a few places.

We spent the night in our bedroom….interior house temp was 56 degrees this morning….so livable. Kids are out of school today again. Ian gets to work on a limb that has the van trapped in the garage. It fell on the back driveway, right where we normally park the Acura and pickup.
but they were parked in our front diveway when that happened.

Dave's comments:

Lost quite a few limbs and trees. The birch and maple by back driveway are probably shot.
Spent quite a bit of time knocking ice off limbs last night to try and save some more trees over back deck and front door. Seemed to help.

Temps are warming and it is melting just in time for another round tonight.
Generators are all sold out….expecting more shipments today.
Don’t know should buy one or not……at this pt they are still saying 7 – 10 days…but managing ok.

Back to Terina: Dave has an aversion to personal pronouns.