This was, for Seattle, a world-historical storm, filling even the most zealous Northwest greenie with grave doubts about the slam dunk obviousness of global warming. We’ve not had this much snow at Christmas in 147 years. (Indeed, we don’t get snow at Christmas but a dozen times a century.)

Driving was a total adventure, given that Seattleites have all the competence on icy roads of a giraffe on roller skates. But happily we had no accidents, only got stuck once or twice, Luke and the Tash managed to sing at midnight Mass and still get to the house for Christmas without maiming themselves or others, and Christmas proceeded to dump massive amounts of snow on us with no harm done to anyone in the Fambly.

The guys (and me a little bit) built a massive snowfort in the back yard (visible from space) which remains while all the rest of the world has returned to green and grey. Alas, the bloody snowhead on a pike and the tasteful human skulls sculpted from snow have gone the way all beauty must go in this changable world. But we took pictures so that future generation would not let it be forgot that once there was a spot called Bleedalot.

We totally milk Christmas for all it’s worth. I felt somewhat bad because I let Advent just whiz past without much thought. But God was gracious and made this one of the most memorable for us on record. Our previously bashful younglings (not that you can tell Sean is bashful from the picture at left) suddenly came out of their shells this year and badly wanted to sing in the children’s choir for the Christmas vigil. So we made that happen and they were all great.

We were supposed to have various parties the weekend of the 20th, but God had other plans such as world-historical storms, so we rolled with it and bumped the parties till after Christmas, making the rehearsal for the choir instead.

At the rehearsal, we received the joyous news that, ‘ow you say?, this photo does not depict the full range of Luke and Tasha’s family anymore. In the words of Yoda, “There is another.” The Tash is due July 25. This makes me, the junior of my brothers by 12 and 9 years, the first grandfather of my generation. So I had a jolly time at the Shea party dispensing great gobbets of grandfatherly wisdom whether people wanted it or not. The great thing about being a grandfather is that you get all the paternal reverence and fun and none of the hard work or poopy diapers. Just hand ’em back to mom or dad when they start to smell and then take over spoiling them again once the nasty work is done. I look forward to telling little Mark Phillip how much nicer grandma and grampa are than his mean parents and if he comes to live with us he can stay up as late as he likes and eat whatever he likes and do whatever he wants for as long as he wants because we really love him. (Note to humor-impaired readers: I won’t really do that.)

Anyway, grandparents! How cool is that? What a great Christmas! If you think of it, please do keep Tasha and Luke in your prayers!