Green Family Christmas Morning

I say "Green Family Christmas" because that is exactly what it was! It was just me, Jason and Vaughn. That isn't exactly how it was supposed to be. Jason's mom and dad were set to arrive midday Christmas Eve, as was his sister, Missy. All three debated coming late Wednesday night, due to the threat of snow and ice, but each decided against it. Throughout that night and the next day we officially received 14" of snow, so perhaps they SHOULD have come up the night before, but never the less, they opted to wait. Ron and Gail ended up leaving their house in Tyler early Christmas Eve morning, and made it as far north as Norman, OK (about 20 miles from us) but couldn't get any further, as I-35 was a parking lot. Missy opted to take her chances on the airlines as she had a ticket to fly out of Love Field on Southwest Airlines on Christmas Eve and she ALMOST made it. . . but not quite. She ended up hopping a train - yes, you read that correctly - she took the Amtrak from Ft. Worth to OKC after her flight was cancelled and made it to downtown at almost 2 a.m. Christmas morning. They all managed to get to our house around lunch time on Christmas day, but by then we had already discovered that Santa had indeed made a stop here! Jason and I debated "sleeping in" until Vaughn woke us up, but we decided to get up early - 5:30 - in order to have a cup or two of coffee before the mayhem began.

This is how our peaceful little home looked before V got out of bed.

V got his "big green tractor"! Santa left it front and center under the tree. Vaughn couldn't believe it, and after he had gotten on and off a few times, he got down - literally - to business! Here he was checking out the tires and the pedals, and wondering where the engine was!

"To Infinity and Beyond!" - complete with rocket booster sound effects. I am lucky the camera lens stayed dry!

Just before the "extended" family was set to arrive - from Norman - Jason and Vaughn went out into the driveway to attempt to prepare a place for them to park in our driveway.

You can get a sense for exactly how much snow there was from these pictures. Check out those icicles on Jason's truck bumper - they look LETHAL! At this point, Vaughn hadn't decided if he thought the snow was a good or a bad thing.

Progress - slow and steady