Thank God for a Christmas Miracle

A while back I wrote a post about blessings disguised as inconveniences. I experienced an equally remarkable Christmas miracle this year.

Sacred Family Traditions

We are a family of long-held, sacred traditions. We have a fantastic tradition for all of the holidays. Every year we go to my parents in Ft. Collins, CO (1 hour drive) on December 23rd and stay through Christmas morning, at which time we drive home to prepare dinner for my husband’s family. On the eve of Christmas Eve, we drive up to our cabin which is virtually snowed in. We ride over the snow drifts on my Dad’s Polaris four-wheeler that is equipped with snow tracks for the winter, standing up in the back of the four-wheeler while snow is blown in our faces. Freezing and drenched in snow, we make a delicious hot meal complete with fresh cookies that we bake in the propane oven. It is a big to-do. The mountain adventure takes all day. We are warmed at the end with a soup dinner back at my parent’s over-heated house.

The next day, Christmas Eve, the whole family meets at Chipper’s Lanes Bowling Alley for a few hours of amateur bowling and secondary-good pizza. It is a wonderful way to pass the time on this day of anticipation. Once done, we do a last minute scramble through the adorable old town of Ft. Collins to get our remaining gifts and ingredients.

Christmas Eve night is when the big event happens. The family gathers at my parent’s for gift opening. Now, we don’t just open gifts. We play a card game called Tripoly. This game has really quick card play that results in a winner within about 2 minutes. Whoever wins gets to open a gift. It is quite wonderful because each gift and gift opener is given proper attention—none of the frantic gift opening where no one is paying attention to anyone else. Ours takes hours and everyone is recognized and celebrated.

Most of us stay the night and wake up to over-filled stockings and a breakfast we all help prepare. We watch our favorite Christmas movies, Creature Comforts and Muppet’s Christmas Carol. Mid-day we head home and prepare dinner for the other half of the family.

Not This Year

This year everything was different. My sister-in-law volunteered to have Christmas Eve at her house in Denver, CO. I was not at all excited about this even though they live 15 minutes away. It meant changing things up after 50 years of EXACTLY the same thing. I am not resistant to change typically, but this three-day adventure is sacred to me. Everyone else in the family was all for trying something new. Even my mother was very relieved to hand over hosting duties. Seemed like I was the only one not happy about it. Indeed, I was grateful to my sister-in-law, Courtney, for offering her house up.

Crisis Averted

So, December 24th we were sitting around the Christmas tree at our house watching a holiday favorite—me, all grumbly about being in Denver. Suddenly, my daughter, Peyton, shrieks out from her bedroom, “Help, Dad!”. Turns out, the hot water pipe to her bathroom sink burst and water was shooting out in all directions. At that very minute I realized why we had to be in Denver for Christmas. Had we been at my parents for our three-day holiday adventure, we would have come back to a completely flooded house with 24 hours of water filling it up—could have been a complete tragedy. Instead, my husband was able to fix the pipe and meet us after bowling for the night’s events. We bowled at the new Punch Bowl Social Club in the Stapleton neighborhood of Denver. It was kitschy and had great food.

My perspective on the whole Christmas event changed immediately upon the pipe bursting. Thank the Lord. Our house is safe and dry.

Christmas Eve dinner was fantastic. We played Tripoli and took hours to open all the gifts. In the end, my parents came over to our house to sleep and be tended to. We awoke to a cozy Christmas morning without having to drive anywhere, no water on the floor. It was a perfect holiday filled with love.