Saturday: Santa.

“Did he cry?” Sandman7 asked when I saw him that night. “Yes,” I said, “when it was time to leave Santa’s lap.” (I suspect Sparky may not be quite clear on the telling Santa what you want in order for him to deliver it on Christmas Eve thing. It’s possible that he expected Santa to hand him a new train right there and then. The ball he got was appreciated, but it wasn’t a train.) Then he fell asleep in the car on the way home, and woke up when we tried to carry him in without waking him. And he didn’t nap at all, other than those five minutes.

Saturday evening I went out to dinner with not one but two fabulously talented, witty, and suave men. Sandman7, Talyesin and I went out for a special dinner at a local steakhouse and had a lovely, lovely meal with delicious wine. I have not had such a wonderful meal or night out in, er, longer than I can count.

Sunday: Tree.

Wait, no; first it was two hours of shovelling. Then we went out to get the tree. In the blizzard, yes, because if we didn’t do it Sunday morning, it wouldn’t get done. It was frigid. The boy had great fun trotting around the lot saying, “Ooh, look, Kissmas trees! Look at all the Kissmas trees! Look at them all!”, tears streaming from his eyes from the wind, his little button nose bright red. We put the tree inside the car to take it home, as tying it on top of the car would have made driving even more dangerous in the gusts of wind and lack of visibility due to blowing snow than it already was, and he held one of the branches all the way back. I remember that he did the same thing last year. (The tree-buying experience couldn’t be more different, however; last year we were looking at a green Christmas. This year, well, there’s a metre of snow in the backyard already, from fence to shining fence.)

We put the tree in the front entryway, and rearranged the living room. Then HRH shovelled for another two hours.

Then the damned stand broke when we tried to put the tree up, postponing the actual assembly of tree and decorating till some undetermined point later in the week. The tree was put on the back porch to collect piles of snow overnight.

Then HRH went out and shovelled for another two hours.

This morning the blizzard had passed and the sun rose and the world was white and sparkling and a sea of snowdrifts. HRH went out and shovelled for yet another two hours (I know, it’s repetitious, but so is the work), and all the neighbours banded together and helped one another uncover cars lost in snow drifts and to clear the piles of snow left by the ploughs. It’s so fabulous to see people actually helping one another instead of taking snow clearing for granted.

After dropping the boy off at his caregiver’s this morning, we bought a new snow shovel and tree stand to replace the broken ones (yes, bad things to have happen to one around blizzard time — and when HRH fought his way through the storm to arrive at the doors of Canadian Tire just as someone was coming up to close them yesterday, he was told he’d had eight hours to get what he needed and they weren’t letting him in. Was I not just expressing astonishment at the lack of civility among the retail workers this season?). The tree is now inside, in the new stand and the boughs are falling into place properly. I suppose we’ll decorate it tonight.

HRH is off doing a snow fence for someone today, and I’m finishing up the YA edits and printing it out, come what may.

ETA: Environment Canada says that we got 30 cm of snow yesterday, and that the record for December 16 is 41.2 cm. We’ve had 78 cm so far this month, and the record is 118.1 centimetres in 1972, so we’re two-thirds of the way there.