Up the mountain and down again

So after missing out on getting to my sister's mountain top house for Christmas Eve, we decided to set out early the next morning, since her power was still on and the warm rain up from the Gulf was supposedly melting some of the ice on the hairpin turns up the road to her house. Unfortunately, same system dumped 4 inches in a hour in my city--couldn't even get out to the car with stuff while it was falling. Although I live on top of one of the highest hills in the city, a leaf pile in the street was able to divert a stream uphill into my yard (and of course, eventually into my basement). When we were finally able to get out and start driving, we found several of our usual routes flooded out (one even had whitecaps). We drove around and made it up to near the bottom of her mountain, only to find a similar situation there (floods, that is). We left our car in a church parking lot and my every-competent BIL came down in his 4X4 to drive us up--through the floods, up the still-icy steep curves, and finally to their wonderful house, where we were greeted by a half-Rottweiler wearing a Santa suit (for about 5 minutes). The ham was eaten (mostly by people), the wine and champagne and scotch were drunk, the Cataan was played, the presents were opened, the night was spent (with visiting asthmatic cat wheezing in our ears until I bailed for the couch), and the rat ate his rat treats. Next morning, after more Cataan with sister and nephew, left and went to work some more on getting the Asheville house ready to sell. Only real disaster (and considering possibilities, this is very minor) left my keys, hopefully in door of empty house in secluded neighborhood, or at worst dropped them while loading the car (Bill driving, that's how).

The snowy mountains were beautiful, the time with family delicious. Worth waiting for. Hope all your days were merry and bright, too!!