Christmas Blizzard

The year was 1982, I was seventeen years old and I had been dating a boy for about a year and a half. I invited him to come to Christmas Eve services with me and my family and then come back to the house for snacks, etc. It was going to be great because I LOVE Christmas Eve and the boy I loved would be there to share it with me.

It had already been snowing for awhile when he left his house and he walked over since a.) we were all going to drive down to church together and b) his car wasn't exactly a snow car. This was not the first time he had been to my house, of course and he knew there would be a crowd. Everyone was there. My mom and dad. My grandma. My two older sisters and their husbands, and the younger four siblings. We all ate dinner and hung out talking around the table for awhile and then we received a phone call from someone at church that services were being cancelled because of the blizzard conditions. We looked out and it was amazing how much snow had fallen in such a short period of time! But this was Colorado after all and snow is kinda normal in the winter. Duh!

Everyone was having a good time, playing games, watching TV movies, making out in the basement. Um, that sounds bad. It was really just me and him making out. Not everyone else. Ahem, moving on. . . it's just that no one was in a big hurry to leave.

And it's a good thing too because there was no way any one COULD leave! The roads were awful and the snow was so deep that my sisters and their husbands and my Grandma decided to just stay the night. I was so looking forward to my boyfriend spending the night too. Nothing dirty I promise (!) but it would be fun to have him around for the morning festivities, that's all!

Around 11:30 or so, I went to ask my dad.

"Dad? Is it okay if Tim just spends the night too?"

"Absolutely not."

"But, Dad! The roads are REALLY bad. And there is NO way he can walk home in this."

"I'll take him home. That's what four wheel drive is for."

So out we went to clean off the Suburban and get him home. We headed down our street and it was clear that we were the only idiots on the road. There was NO one else around. We didn't see anyone, no plow drivers, nothing. This ended up being a good thing because it there was absolutely no way we were going to be able to observe any rules of the road. No stopping for stop signs. No stopping for red lights. If we didn't keep that truck in motion it was going to get stuck for sure.

When we were about a block from Tim's house, my dad told him that he was just going to slow down and that Tim would have to just jump from the truck. I totally thought he was kidding and started laughing. When he didn't laugh along, I knew he was serious. When we got to his street, my dad slowed down to about 5 mph and Tim opened up the door and jumped out. I pulled the door closed from the inside and we just kept driving! I looked back and saw Tim making his way through the three feet of snow and knew that he'd get home just fine. Dad and I drove up the next main street to work our way back home. It was really slow going and took us about 30 minutes to do what normally would take 5.

That boyfriend became my husband and he and my dad always had a great time retelling this story. It's always fun to see people's faces when I ask them, "Wanna hear about the time my dad made my boyfriend jump out of a moving car?"