Christmas in a hurricane

So, Marcus and were looking forward to finally experiencing Christmas on the west coast. We figured we'd check out the infamous Christmas light display at Stanley Park, ride the little holiday train, explore some of the other events and displays in and around the lower mainland. But then of course, we got more freaky weather, as if we hadn't had enough freaky weather for most of November. Hurricane force winds, torrential rain, power outages, and other good stuff has put a serious damper on all festivities. Sitting in our little apartment in New West you probably wouldn't know that anything bad had happened, but drive five-ten minutes in any direction and you see the problems. Several cities were without power for over two days, including our local mall (poor little Christmas shoppers). In Seattle, a co-worker was without power for five days. We, however, didn't lose power once. Stanley Park, well, it's trashed to say the least. I'm not just talking about the Christmas lights either. Entire sections of trees came down, so now the lush inner city rain forest looks like it's just been clearcut. Oh, sections of the park have re-open, but they figure it will take at least a year to clean up the mess. I'm kind of feeling like we live in the eye of every storm.

As for our Christmas on the west coast, well...we're spending it indoors for the most part. Bought ourselves a new dvd player, got lots of new dvds from the fam for Christmas, so we're set. We already made little "gingerbread" houses from graham crackers and decorated them with loads of candy. Tomorrow night might be paper snowflake night.

Happy holidays from the soggy coast!