Second Annual Christmas Eve Drama

Last Christmas Eve, if you remember, we thought Julio and Juan Carlos, then 8 and 5 years old, had been abducted for what were the longest 90 minutes of my life. Only after the local police were involved did we find them in a neighbor's basement, playing video games, totally clueless that they had all of us sick with fear.

This year's Christmas Eve drama involved my parents. They were headed up to our house in the mountains, their car loaded to the brim with presents and food. Along with our Santa Watch on Google Earth, we were also keeping a "Grandma Watch" via telephone to know how long before they arrived. My mom and I were calling back and forth, planning all the ways we could terrorize our Steeler-loving neighbors who have a real talent for blocking the entire driveway so no one can come or go.

A few minutes before they were to arrive, my mom called hyperventilating and crying; all I could make out was, "...we went off the road...send Guapo...police on their way..."

Not a good feeling.

I yelled at Guapo to go find them, and then I went and really yelled at the neighbors, whose cars were, once again, blocking us in. So annoying. Anyway, Guapo left and after a few minutes I tried to call him to see if he had found them yet, only to hear his phone ringing inside the house. Uggh!

After what seemed like forever, they finally made it up to our house and everyone was, amazingly, in one piece. They had in hand the two extension cords we had asked them to pick up on their way up so we could plug in our fondue pots-my dad had climbed back down to the car to retrieve them- how sweet (and totally unnecessary) is that?

We got bundled up and headed 2 miles down the mountain to the scene of the accident because we had to unload all the gifts (I didn't really think this was too important at this point, but my parents insisted). These pictures don't do justice to how scary it actually looked:

It was very steep where they went off. Luckily, they went straight down and some big rocks slowed the car to a halt; had they gone down sideways, they most likely would have rolled the car and things probably wouldn't have ended so happily.

The second picture shows our 4 person chain we used to get the gifts up to the top (all while it was below zero outside).

Here are a couple of pictures in daylight, to gives you a little better idea of how steep it was.

We were "lucky" once again and were able to sit down for our traditional Christmas Eve fondue dinner (extension cords and all) together as a family (albeit with red, puffy eyes). It's funny how the gifts just don't seem as important after an experience like that, I was just happy to have my parents there with us on Christmas day. In case you haven't ever gotten it from my blog, I love my parents so much, and thinking about life without them is not something that I want to do at this point in my life.

I hope you all had a wonderful day with your loved ones.