Merry Christmas

I went out to the mall today and picked up a few stocking stuffers and it wasn't as crowded as I expected it to be.
As I drove home, I could see shafts of sun to the east but in my rearview mirror all I could see was angry black clouds with greenish light seeping in between. When I walked in the door my phone was ringing. My sister-in-law called to tell me there was a tornado warning for Walker County. A storm spotter had reported a funnel cloud. The road I live on dead ends onto Coon Creek Road.
When I walked to the back deck to get a sense of how bad and how close, the wind started blowing rain horizontally and the trees in my yard were swaying like a yard full of drunks. I stepped back inside and grabbed my flashlight. I started herding my dogs to the middle of the house in our safe place. And just as quickly as it had started, the wind died down. The rain kept pouring, but after the squall line blew by, all that was left was water and lightning.
As soon as that was over, I got a call from work and we had a computer down hard. I got on the phone with a sense of dread because it's an older computer and it's Christmas Eve. I could envision being on the phone all night. As it turns out, we managed to remove the defective component and the computer booted right up. I said a silent prayer.
Jilda got home a little while ago and fired up a pizza, and put on some Christmas music. I began to feel better at once.
We have Christmas Eve to ourselves these days. Tomorrow will be hectic, but tonight we'll kick back, maybe watch "It's a Wonderful Life" and open the gifts we give each other.
I hope you all have a safe and Merry Christmas.