Winter Wonderland to the Extreme

I love a White Christmas! There is something about having snow for Christmas that is just icing on the cake of a wonderful holiday. It just doesn't seem the same if it's a "brown" Christmas.

But seriously now. This was just a tad extreme. Not quite what I had in mind. Friday morning it was beautiful outside. By noon the sky turned grey and the wind started to pick up a bit. By afternoon the snow started. As all of Alberta was under a blizzard warning we weren't surprised.

But then by Saturday it got crazy. Winds got up to 70 km/hr (about 43 mph). The problem wasn't so much the falling snow, but that plus the blowing snow combined. Highways were shut down. Cities came almost to a stand still. At least 6 cars got stuck by Saturday afternoon in front of my house as they tried to make room to pass each other and the snow on the side out of the worn path sucked them in. Bad news. More bad news? Minimum 2 hour wait on a tow truck.

The drift. Oh the drift! You had to be here. That is snow blowing off my roof onto my deck. Yes, it's up to my patio table. My poor dog held it in. I'm sure I saw his legs crossing at some point. Then he braved the blowing snow and it was a quick trip out let me tell you. He had a little path we managed to shovel out for him. And he did not waste anytime.

I don't know if you can see by this pic but the drifted snow is higher than my deck. How many days it'll take to shovel that out no one knows. No going through that gate for awhile, I guess.

I noticed none of you all sent a dog sled or a St. Bernard to my rescue like I requested. So no Christmas shopping for me even though my to do list was a mile long for this weekend. But a sweet young man with an ATV with a shovel on the front came around and helped push my friend onto my driveway when she got high centered. He used that thing to shovel the end of my driveway off so that that wouldn't happen again and then he did a few passes in front of our house so cars could park without getting stuck and then that young man literally shovelled off his whole street so that cars could get in and out without getting stuck. Bless his heart! I'm sure there were angel wings tucked under his winter parka somewhere.

So instead of shopping, I spent the weekend inside. I lit my balsalm candle, my youngest made us frothy hot mocha's, we turned on the electric fireplace (hey, it's better than nothing!) and we put up the tree and watched "The Secret Garden", "It's a Wonderful Life" & "Christmas with the Kranks". Now that is cozy comfort to the extreme. And I do have 2 shopping weekends left, right?