Wow! We received over a foot of snow over the past 24 hours. It was enough that we had one of those rare delays to school.

Knowing we were getting snow overnight, but not knowing about the delay, I set out a second set of clothes to shovel in and woke up an entire 15 minutes early. This 15 minutes came in handy as it took about three hours of shoveling to clear the main drive of the 8 1/2 inches of wet, heavy snow that we had by then, using the lights from our house to illuminate the dark driveway. I barely had time to shower before I had to leave.

I contemplated not going into work as our road wasn’t plowed, but decided to trust Mera to get us out. Our trust was well-founded as she got us through the deep snow (with snow blasting over the top of the windshield) and up the hill—although we were almost thwarted by a driver who nearly ran the stop up there.

There were another three to four inches when we got home, with more coming down. It was easier this second time as the snow was fluffy and light, but we took the opportunity to work on some of the now-hardened areas that we didn’t finish in the morning. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to finish because not only did it get naturally dark, but our house was (and is still) out of power.

We went to St. Elias for dinner where we met with Chloé and broke the bad news about our lack of power to her. While she has been ecstatic about the snow, she was really less than happy about the power ... especially when she discovered that it also means no water.

While the inconveniences are certainly inconvenient, and Janelle and I are both hurting from our exertions, I’m still much happier with the snow than I was without it.

The liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church starts over today as we prepare for Christmas and for Christ’s Second Coming. While, in modern times, the lead up to Christmas is filled with festivity and consumerism, Advent is actually a penitential season. It is a time to examine our lives and work to prepare our world so that it is worthy of the goodness of God.

The homily today played with the word “present” or “presents.” Although many of us are looking to get presents this season, we need to be more present in the here and now. While looking forward can be enjoyable, we also need to work now so that our presence makes the world better.

Thus, while we look forward to Christmas, we need to put forth effort now to ensure that it will turn out right. We also need to work on being present for others just as Jesus is present in our lives.

I love this time of year. We just put up most of our Christmas lights around the house. All that we are missing is the tree and some of our outside lights. Right now, everything looks festive and jubilant.

Especially since the sun is down for such a large portion of the day, these lights really brighten my spirits. I'm always a bit sad to see them come down (sometime in April). I have them all on timers so they come on when I get up in the morning, turn off for a bit while the sun is up, and are on again until about midnight (which makes for a good incentive to go to bed before then).

The lights also brighten my mood in cold weather--not that it's been that cold lately. While I am tired of the rain and warmer temperatures, I am taking some comfort in our current weather forecast, which indicates we might see a nice blanket of snow soon. Seeing the colors from our lights reflect off the white snow is another one of the joys in my life.

Sure, putting up the lights might have been a mistake considering how my shoulder has complained since. However, I'll take the trade-off if it means have more light in my life.

Connor and I were up and out early to be at Freddy’s by the time the doors opened. When we got there, it was clear we weren’t in the first hundred customers (who received free gift cards) as the line wrapped around until the two entrance lines intermingled. The store was packed and difficult to navigate, especially since so many people took full sized carts into the electronics area, but everyone was polite—friendly even.

We left from there and headed to Walmart. I found a lot of low-priced movies, but not a lot of employees. There was only one check lane (and no self-checkouts) open when we were ready to go despite there being about twelve people in line. My guess is that they had a light schedule to dealing with needing a larger staff last night.

We returned to Freddy’s and met up with Janelle and Rowen. Janelle had a few things for us to get before she had to work. We headed home soon after. However, we went back one more time at Janelle’s request to have the boys pick out LEGOs that they wanted for Christmas.

All told, as we didn’t have any major purchases this year, I think we spent less than we have the past few years, but I still had fun.

We had a pleasant day. Although we were a little tired since we were up until 1am dealing with pies, everything turned out really well and more than made up for a bit of sleep deprivation. We also had a couple of visiting moose (sadly, one with an arrow hanging from her back right side) who shared a Thanksgiving mean one our yard and compost area.

I think that Chloé enjoyed her first Thanksgiving. When seeing the food spread out on the table, she commented that her teachers in her English classes said American Thanksgivings looked like that, but nobody believed them. She was excited to share pictures with her family and friends.

The meal was wonderful and will be providing delicious leftovers for days to come. All of the pies—which includes two pumpkin pies, a caramel Dutch apple, and Janelle’s famous dark chocolate meringue—turned out beautifully.

After dinner, Chloé left with another host family to Anchorage to experience a full American Black Friday. Meanwhile, after cleaning up, the rest of us played a couple of board games and are now heading to bed. We are getting up early: me and the boys for Black Friday shopping, and Janelle for Black Friday working.

I am thankful for so many things this year. Having this day go so well is certainly one of them.

Few people in our society get less love than those who work in our consumer service industry. While there are plenty of memes thanking (and deservedly so) police, medical care, fire, military for working during this Thanksgiving holiday, consumer service workers are suspiciously absent from them. Yet they will be out there too, working rather than being with their families let alone enjoying this nice 4-day weekend.

These are people who are often working for our convenience and at their severe inconvenience with little in the way of recognition. Instead, they are often treated horribly by "entitled" customers who are looking for someone that they can bully. Any inconvenience (real or imagined) to customers seems to make some that feel that they have the license to be cruel to those who they believe are of a lower social status than them.

Meanwhile, these employees are often given bizarre and shifting schedules, few (if any) sick or vacation days, mind-numbingly dull tasks, and chronic injuries due to repetitive stress tasks. Worse, they are often maligned in public realms as being stupid or lazy (and some are, but I've found that true in all professions). That they are paid less than a living wage is itself a travesty; that people publicly decry and insult them for wanting better is a sad commentary on our society.
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Now, I plan on going shopping on Black Friday (although I do refuse to do so on Thanksgiving itself). When I do so, I try to cheerful, friendly, and polite. They deserve at least that much.