UNO by Candlelight

Last night, the power went out at 7 p.m. We had quite a bad windstorm brewing, and I knew that Alsea had lost power earlier in the day.

We had all our Christmas candles throughout the living room. So, I lit just about all of them (19 in all), and the living room/kitchen/dining room was stunningly beautiful. Such a peace set over our family as we talked to candlelight. We figured it wouldn't be long before the lights came back on.

We didn't know how long we would be without power. So, we made the best of it.

Paul and George were going to sit down to a game of UNO thinking that Michael and I wouldn't be interested. Well, they were wrong. To their utter shock, I sat down with them and played UNO to candlight! We had so much fun! The only difficult thing was the the blue and green cards are very hard to distinguish by candlelight, and one of the candles at the dining room table melted all over my fancy Christmas tablecloth. Other than that, it was a blast. Paul won 2. George won 1, and I won 1, but they gave me the last game because we all got tired of playing it in the mild.

After that, we sat in the living room with the fire blazing and candes burning and talked about our highs and lows for the year. Paul cried, and we hugged. He still remembered a painful time we had together at the beginning of the year. I had forgotten all about it, but it was good to talk it through again. I will say that since we had that hard time, Paul has been a changed person. He is much more sensitive, and we are much closer. (The painful time was when I reacted TOO strongly to a hurtful thing he said to me.).

Then, we talked about the funniest things that happened in 2006, and we were rolling on the floor laughing. Michael can't always articulate the highs and lows, but he can go on and on about the funny things.

The lights returned at 10:45, and it was too soon for me. I willingly missed my Survivor show for a blessed time with my lovely family of four. It made me want to continue to grab every moment we have together. These times are so short and precious.