The weather has been just awful the last few days. Though our area missed the brunt of the storm, a huge ice storm that swept across the Midwest and slammed into the northeast put hundreds of thousands of folks without power.... some not even expected to get it back until Friday (Christmas Eve is Tuesday!). The storm shut down many airports and totally ruined travel plans for millions.

The day didn't start out very 'wintery' at all. The sun was out, and there were just whiffs of clouds slipping across the sky. Later in the day, it did become at least a little overcast, so sort of felt like Christmas Eve. At least we had piles of snow still around from the storms.

I started hauling in wood for a fire and some last minute cleaning after lunch. And then around 2:30pm I started prep work on the Beef Bourguignon I was making for Christmas Eve dinner because it had to simmer for about 4 hours.

I used my mom's recipe for ox tails, something she'd cook either Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve. Because I had fixed ox tails for Colin and Ren before, I made some basic changes to the ingredients and substituted beef sirloin for the ox tails and had a pretty good, but different, representation of my mom's Beef Bourguignon recipe!

Colin and Ren were able to join Sue and I for Christmas Eve dinner after Colin got out of work. They got here just as Sue and I were finishing off a rather hotly contested set of backgammon games. They graciously and patiently waited while we trashed talked each other to the last throw. Hopefully entertaining.... We had a wonderful time just visiting and catching up on things while the Beef Bourguignon simmered.

Dinner came out great, and we all had more than enough to eat. Sue had made a terrific cranberry cheese cake desert that we had after opening gifts - a simple, few things rather than any of us getting caught up in the all too normal commercialized 'shop 'til you drop' frenzy.

At 8:30pm we all got in front of the computer monitor and did a Skype video session with my brother Alan and his two sons and their families. It was great seeing them all and hearing how their Christmas was going.

We cleaned up after the kids left, and then just relaxed on the sofa with a fire going, and watched a half hour episode of HGTV House Hunters before turning in for the night.