Funny story...

So you know how I wrote that New Year's Eve post about spending time with friends, laughing a lot? Well, I certainly got what I asked for, though not exactly the way I was expecting.

We invited some friends over to celebrate New Year's Eve at our house. They came with their sweet children. It was a clear and frozen night. We drank bubbly, lit sparklers. All was lovely. And then we had a great idea. Let's light a fire in the fireplace! I should mentioned we just moved to our house in November and hadn't lit a fire in the fireplace before. (Cue ominous music.)

The fire was lit, a lovely crackling fire. The living room started filling with smoke. "No worries," we said, "the chimney's just cold and the cold air is pushing down the smoke. In a few moments the air will heat up."

At first, it seemed like all would be well. The smoke stopped coming into the room. And then, it suddenly did. A lot.

"We have to kill the fire!" I yelled, choking on the smoke. We poured a couple of pitchers of water and woosh! Billowing clouds of smoke come pouring into the house. The smoke alarm goes off. The kids are freaking out. The dog poops in the kitchen. It's freezing out and we're opening windows, turning on fans.

And in the chaos, our dear friends looked at us and said, "how about spending the night at our place?"

We welcomed in 2014 in our friends' home, an unexpected extension to our party, laughing our heads off, glad to all be safe, in the company of good friends, in a non-smoked house.

It was easy to count our blessings.

You can't make this stuff up. Well, I could. But I didn't.

More later,

Tammar