12 Blessings of Christmas

This Christmas was so amazing in incredible ways. As we all came to discover, God's hand was guiding our family gathering in the snow from the time the idea was presented at Thanksgiving dinner in November. Brother Tom kept the dream of a white Christmas surprise alive during the next few weeks and then took the plunge to buy plane tickets for himself, Marti, Amy and Brian. They scheduled their flight for Tuesday Dec. 23rd, the day after Tom's birthday. We had just seen and talked to Tom, Amy and our daughter Erin via SKYPE, an online video/phone the evening before their visit. We had no idea Tom and family were planning a special surprise visit to Friday Harbor. We were covered with 6 inches of snow and giving them a bad time for not coming up and joining us in the snow as we talked on SKYPE.

To make matters very interesting for Tom, SeaTac airport had been shut down for 48 hours due to the unsually heavy snowfall. It appeared that their surprise was going down the tubes as northwest travel was paraylyzed by the white stuff. Tom and family went to bed feeling pretty doubtful that their surprise would happen this year. When the 3 a.m. alarm went off, Marti went to the computer to discover that their flight on Virgin America was going to take-off on time to Seattle. Their 6 a.m. departure was the first flight out of Seattle in two days. Hmmmm! Anyone seeing God's hand at work?

Sure enough, they took to the air and arrived in Seattle to a sea of snow. Now they needed to rent a car and hit the I-5 freeway for the snowy drive up to Anacortes and the ferry ride to Friday Harbor. Nephew Brian took the wheel and braved the snowy road conditions for two hours in time to make the 2:40 p.m. ferry. The side roads were icy and Brian experienced some loss of traction, slip sliding away, in a fast food parking lot, but God's guiding hand kept everyone safe.

Ho! Ho! Ho! "We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas..." This and other Christmas songs greeted me as I opened the door to 4 masked happy carolers, yucking it up. I could not figure out who was behind those masks and neither could anyone else in our house. We were all stumped and confused. Then the masks came off, one at a time, lo and behold, it was niece Amy, nephew Brian, brother Tom and wife Marti. They pulled it off, the greatest Christmas surprise ever.