Ready for a cup of tea or cocoa? I think most of us need it considering how cold it’s gotten out there in almost every single state of our country.

It seems crazy to me that it is already Christmas Eve, but here we are and for us arctic temperatures have settled on us. Temperatures this cold scare me, I’m not going to lie. What was really crazy was yesterday when we watched the temperature drop from 46 degrees to negative three in less than ten hours. Last night it was negative five (Fahrenheit).

Thankfully our wood stove has been repaired and if we were to lose power in the next couple of days, we’ll at least have the wood stove to keep us warm.

On Thursday we were hit with snow and the youngest was excited to go out and play in it. The pets enjoyed it for a while but eventually decided they’d had enough too. Now, though, the cats are pacing inside by the back door because they think they want to go outside. We are refusing to let them go, of course, because I don’t want to pry their poor frozen bodies off the back porch. They have been chasing each other today to get out the energy — wait, I should say the oldest has been smacking the youngest because she is mean but it looks like play — but later the youngest (Scout) will fall over in front of the wood stove and we will have to check if she is breathing after a few hours.

By that night, rain had moved in and the temperatures rose but the snow still remained by Friday morning when the temperatures started dropping.

As I’m writing this we are at negative three and are supposed to get to at least negative four. (It actually dropped to negative five). I know that’s nothing compared to the folks in Alaska and parts of Canada and we are fine with that. These temperatures are not something we are used to or adjust to well.

The high on Christmas Eve is supposed to be 10 and the high on Christmas Day might be 19.

By next weekend we are supposed to be in the 50s again, which will be odd and bring on a lot of illness probably.

(How’s your drink? Need a warmup? An extra cookie? Take an extra cookie. We have a lot, which is unusual for us, even in pretend world.)

This week was very uneventful, other than the fact Little Miss had severe pain in one of her teeth and was up all night Monday and then in pain again on Tuesday. We thought we might need to get an emergency dentist appointment but then discovered a spot on her gum behind her tooth on the bottom that made it look like she might have cut her gum somehow. We still aren’t sure what happened but by Wednesday the pain was gone and she’s been fine since.

We have a dentist appointment in late January to see if we can get some issues with her teeth taken care of. Those issues, from what we have been told in the past are caused by an enamel deficiency.

With her tooth issues behind her, she is looking forward to Christmas and a week off from school. Both kids and even mom are looking forward to that break. It will help all three of us regroup and get ready for a new year of learning come January 2.

Between the tooth issue and the cold weather, Little Miss and I didn’t get out of the house much so we took some time to make no-bake cookies and chocolate-covered pretzel sticks for our neighbors. The neighbors closest to us, send over a huge pan of homemade cookies every year and Little Miss wanted to send them a treat back. We could never top what they send, of course. My neighbor and her daughter spend two days baking all kinds of cookies and then giving them away to family, friends, and neighbors.

We did purchase a gift basket for them this year, to try to show them how thankful we are for them being our neighbors and for the cookies they always provide.

I had considered buying cookies from a popular bakery near us and pretending I made them all but, in the end, I really couldn’t do it.

(I might have one of those cookies with my tea now, come to think of it.)

As I write this, we are watching Top Gun Maverick instead of Christmas movies but did watch one of the old 60s Santa Claus claymation movies earlier in the evening.

Today we were going to go to my parents to make homemade pizza, but we decided to stay out of the frigid temps and instead just brave them one day this weekend.

Tomorrow we will have to brave them to spend Christmas with my parents, however. It will be worth it and we are all looking forward to it, though we are disappointed that my brother and his wife have decided they won’t be able to attend.

So, how is the weather where you are? Freezing cold still? Ready for Christmas tomorrow? Or maybe just ready for some downtime? Let me know in the comments and if I don’t talk to you before then, have a Merry Christmas!