December 24, 2017

 This morning I woke up to an inch or two of snow on the ground and a text from my Dad saying they lost their furnace to a fire early this morning. I guess one of the cats woke up my step-mom, who awoke to the smell of smoke (and the sight of smoke). She then woke up my Dad, and I think my brother and his girlfriend woke up around the same time. They looked around (including the furnace room) but couldn't find any obvious signs of fire but then they heard a popping noise or something coming from the furnace so they evacuated from the house and waited for the firefighters to show up. By the time it was all over six firetrucks showed up, which was overkill for what ended up being a small electrical fire in the furnace, but if it had been an active fire they would have needed everyone, so definitely better safe than sorry.

I got over there a little after ten o'clock and brought over one of my space heaters. They had the fireplace going, so the main area of the house was warm, but the basement and upper floor were cooler. My Dad said they see how it goes tonight but I told him they could borrow my other heater as well if they needed to because they don't think they'll be able to get the insurance process started until Tuesday at the earliest. I can easily just jack up my thermostat in the meantime.

Other than a slightly odd smell, it was a pretty normal Christmas. My aunt and grandma were there, and we all sat around and talked for awhile until the food was ready. After we ate, we opened presents. It was weird because normally I get fewer presents that everyone and I end up sitting there watching everyone else open presents. There was one year where I got far fewer and I think I ended up falling asleep before everyone else was done. But this year I actually had presents up until the end, and it was weird. I got gift cards, a couple bread pans and a bread recipe book, a book of random facts, a small glass boat, and a box of stuff (like flour, rice, detergent, Pringles, etc.). Good times.

I think I got home a little before four o'clock. I unloaded my car, got stuff put away, started my laundry, and played CoD: WW2. Then I took a break for dinner, finished watching Fred Claus and then watched The Santa Clause. I spent the rest of the evening finishing my laundry and playing CoD: WW2. I had some decent games when it came to the scoreboard but I rarely felt like I was doing well. More often than not it felt like I was having to empty entire clips into people and they could still turn on me and kill me immediately. I also seem to have come across a few daily orders that were broken. One was to pass a ball to an ally in Gridiron. I did that, and it didn't count. I had to get forty-five kills in a War match, which took me awhile because almost every game I played tonight had lopsided teams so they rarely lasted through all three stages for both teams, but then I got it and it didn't count. And lastly I had to win three shootouts in the headquarters, which I did, but it didn't count. It was pretty annoying.

It's now closing in on 1:30AM and I need need to wake up in the morning to go to my Mom's house, so I'm going to call this good and record my audio journal so I can go to bed.