Don’t we all find ourselves wishing for an “old fashioned” Christmas? Well, as we were just finishing our feast; we got one. We were doing fine until our daughter showed up and her son noticed a wire on the ground. It was not even hot but it was hanging off of a power pole. My husband called PGE and they came out. The guy took one look at the pole, gasped and shut everything off. A cross bar on the pole had cracked and people to the north of us only had 110 but no 220. We were told it would be off until evening *sometime*. It was just twilight and by opening the drapes we were able to get quite a bit of light into the living room. We also scrambled for and lit numerous oil lamps. There was plenty of light for present opening. It was so nice to have TV and WiFi not be an option. The only real problem was that I had not baked my cake and I have an electric stove. It was starting to get really dark so we brought in a propane lantern which gave plenty of light. Since we live in the country and have a well; we had to ration water. Even though our furnace is gas; it cannot run without the electric fan. Luckily the weather was mild and we did not get cold. The repair men showed up. Four trucks and a porta-potty in tow. They were planning on being a while. I put my cake together and the DH fired up the oven in the RV. The pan did not quite fit but we blocked the edges with foil and it came out okay. Our driveway was blocked so our daughter and hubby could not leave. Her daughter had parked in the neighbor’s driveway so the kids were all able to leave. Around 9:30PM the whole house lit up! It was really kind of weird, and bright. No one had checked when it went off and we noticed the oven was still on as were a couple of burners. I am not writing all of this to complain. It was a very fun, cozy, quiet evening. We played a family card game and talked. I think next year I may just throw the main breaker.
