This Christmas...

Another winter break from school is soon coming to an end!  What a winter break this was... 

We had quite the Christmas week, I feel happy about all the time spent with family, but it sure did feel like "The Christmas That Never-Ended".   My vacation began on December 20th with Mr. Lock's work Christmas party in the afternoon, and then we had all of our friends over for our annual Christmas get-together -- the last one in our condo.  An ice storm was coming into our area of southern Ontario, but we only had rain where we were fortunately.  I had a great time at Mr. Lock's work do... but that evening, just as we were starting dinner with our friends, I felt incredibly ill.  I ended up with what must have been food poisoning, not a stellar start to my winter break! 

Fortunately, I felt a bit better on the Saturday (phew!).  However, the ice storm had changed some of our plans and my family Christmas party was rescheduled to the 28th.  Mr. Lock and I signed our mortgage paperwork for our house on December 21st, but other than that I mostly laid around and tried to get some strength back after being so sick the night before.

That evening, the ice storm caused quite a few power failures... fortunately, not for us.  However, Mr. Lock's parents ended up losing power from Saturday, December 21st... until Christmas night.  By Christmas Eve, we convinced them to come stay at our condo and we went to stay at my parents house.  We had a really nice Christmas Eve with my family, full of the usual traditions (and a brief visit with some very good friends before dinner).  Christmas morning, Mr. Lock headed back to our condo so they could have a make-shift Christmas morning as a family, he was coming to get me again that evening for dinner at his Aunt and Uncle's house.

Well, Christmas just wasn't meant to be for the Locks.... what a fiasco!  Christmas morning, rather than opening gifts and having their traditional brunch, the Locks had to go to Toronto and help out Mr. Lock's brother and his wife -- who had returned from a trip to New York, only to sleep for a couple of hours and then have the radiator burst in their apartment!  What a mess!

We were able to have a really nice Christmas dinner that evening, and were happy when we discovered that the power was restored to the Lock residence that evening by 8 pm.  They slept in our condo for one more night so their home could warm up, and went home on Boxing Day.

Also on Boxing Day, Christmas continued for Mr. Lock and I as we went to my paternal grandparents' house for Christmas with my dad's side of the family.  We had a wonderful day, good food and great company, but we were sad to learn that my dad's uncle had passed away on Christmas morning.  He was older, and ill and in hospice, but we were still sad for the loss of course.  My grandma will miss her brother, as her family was always very close.  The funeral is this weekend, so we'll be back together with family again to celebrate and honour my great-uncle's life.

Then, December 27th came along... it was time for another tradition for the Lock family, a skating party with Mr. Lock's godparents.  It was really fun to spend an hour on the ice, since I don't skate as often anymore as I did growing up.  The 28th, we went to my Aunt and Uncle's house for my mom's side of the family Christmas party... glad for better travelling weather compared to the weekend before.  

Then, on the 29th, we were able to get together with Mr. Lock's parents and brother and sister-in-law so that we could have a meal and finally have the Lock's Christmas presents opened that they missed on their mixed-up, crazy, Christmas morning.

It was such a hectic week... full of great food, great company, and an overall wonderful Christmas.  It was just a strange one, lots of events had to be moved around and we needed to make up some family time after the ice storm and power failure.  It was definitely not a traditional Christmas, but as someone getting married and needing to change the Christmas traditions a bit to balance family commitments, it was probably for the best to get us all ready for next year.