Christmas Day...different but lovely

Today, Christmas Day, so much different then we planned or have ever had before. We left my Mom and Dad's house late last night, after celebrating with them, in the start of a blizzard, under a blizzard warning from the NWS. We barely made it home busting through 2-3 foot drifts in our van, God bless it! It remained a blizzard all night. We woke up to a white out with drifts easily approaching 3-5 feet. My sister's new house has one in front of the garage that has got to be close to 8 feet. It is beautiful, a real Winter Wonderland. Needless to say, we are snowed in. We were supposed to celebrate Christmas with Brian's Dad and Julie and Grandparents, Aunts, and Uncle today, that did not happen. It is still a white out out here. Of course, I am happy as a lark. I missed seeing family, but we will celebrate tomorrow and it extends the holiday in a nice way. It is hard to say just how much snow we have received. It has blown all over, but before this blizzard hit, we had accumulated over a foot of the lovely white stuff. YAY! :)
"Santa", aka my sweet husband, blessed my socks off by leaving a very generous gift under the tree for me. It is....drum roll....a new oven/range! My current one decided to start pooping out on me this week. It has been a challenge, to say the least, to finish all the Christmas baking. I was hard pressed to get the oven to 300 degrees and it makes a weird popping sound, complete with the burner not igniting all the way, all the time. It was getting worse by the day. I thought we would just get it fixed. Unknown to me, Brian had been doing a bit of research and found out that the diagnosis was grim. The oven is propane, 11 years old, ignitors have been going out on it for years, matches have become a staple sitting right next to my oven, and it certainly wasn't the top of line when we bought it. It has gone through 3 complete moves counting when we first brought it home. Brian was convinced it was time to bid farewell. He tends to have a good gut about these things, I have learned to listen to him, when I haven't I have regretted it, terribly. The Lord blessed him with great Christmas deals and sales (it was Christmas Eve after all) and he was able to get a much nicer oven with more bells and whistles for just a little over what we payed for our old one 11 years ago. Of course, the oven was not really under the tree; but a picture and description of it in a gift bag with tissue paper. It should come in 7-10 days. I am so thrilled. For me, the cook and baker extraordinaire ;), this is one of the best Christmas gifts ever.