The Great Icemagedon of 2013 Didn’t Kill Our Christmas Joy
So once upon a time in Dallas, fall was here. The roads and yards were covered in leaves freshly fallen from trees and the orange and yellow made a satisfying crunch beneath your feet.
Then…the Ice Apocalypse of 2013 happened here. AKA Icemagedon. We were unprepared. In a desperate haze, we ran to the grocery store. Raining and below 32 degrees? Can it be? How could we be so unprepared.
The entire city had stormed Albertsons. We got the last cart after a man lunged himself across us and took the other remaining screaming, “I HAVE CHILDREN!!! FOR MY CHILDREN!!”
The pickings were slim. There were no vegetables. There was no fruit. The butcher was desperately scrambling to serve the patrons waving tickets yelling, “beef! Beef for my children!” 
We walked in a daze, and thought maybe we could make do with peanut butter and jelly. But there was no bread. Just when things were looking bad for us, and we thought we’d starve during the horrible ice storm, we stumbled upon the beans section. My eyes lit up and I grabbed Scott’s sleeve. “My darling! There is hope!” I cried as I wept openly. “We can have refried beans and tortillas!” After securing both of those items, and even finding a block of cheese- real cheese! we then secured ourselves multiple bottles of red wine, a box of brownie mix and a magazine, and stood in the 30 minute check out line. People ran in screaming, “there is rain and it is going to FREEZE ON THE ROADS RUN FOR YOUR LIVESSS!” We persevered and after thanking the brave cashier for her service to our city, left the store and drove 4mph the entire way home. 
We waited and we prayed. The next morning we woke up to the greatest icestorm of 2013.
We weren’t sure we were going to make it, but we did. We turned on the news- the newscasters weren’t sugarcoating it. “If there is any possible way you can stay home, we urge you to do so. Temperatures are below freezing and there is signs of precipitation on the roadways. We strongly urge you, do not drive.” As we stayed in our home for four days straight- school, church and work was canceled- we watched the news in horror. They ran a report about people having to walk in the cold! Major highways were shut down and people were stuck there for above 12 hours (for real! 🙁 ).
But as a city, we made it through. We won’t be beaten down by icey roads- by black ice and cobblestone ice. We will survive. We lost one of our favorite tree branches during the storm. We woke up and he was just…lying there. In the middle of the road. I ran outside in my pajamas and screamed, “no!! no!!! why?!?! WHYYYY?!!” and Scott slowly dragged him away into the yard. Another senseless casualty of the Icemagedon. 🙁
Boomer had to be wrapped in blankets, and we weren’t sure if his little body could handle the cold. He survived thank goodness!!
It’s still Christmas, however. We won’t let the ice beat us in our own house. And so, we decorated. With the fireplace on and roaring, I changed out the décor on our mantle.
I decorated with the mini ombre Christmas trees I made, vintage angle wings I found at Canton and with a stack of vintage books that were red and green. (Funny story, the bottom one is called the Immortal Wife, which seems odd for Christmas, but whatever, it has a pine tree on the spine and is red, so it’s staying!). Of course I topped it with two of my prettiest books from Anthropologie, so what if one happens to be Pride & Prejudice! 😛
I also spent time making a pom pom garland. Apparently you can do this with cardboard circles, but after doing some research I opted to purchase a pom pom maker. Totally worth it and super affordable.
I hung it below my Pride & Prejudice sign I made along with some scented pinecones and our joy sign (from Target!).
We even put up and decorated a Christmas tree, but it’s not really picture worthy yet. I’ll share later. And of course we tackled a TON of house projects and worked really, really hard for four days straight, pausing only for soft tacos and red wine.
So that, my friends, is how Christmas joy killed the doom of the Icemagedon. 🙂 We will remember, but we will go on. I still feel sad every time I look at the barren space where our tree limb was. RIP buddy.
PS- While I am making light of the situation, Dallas really is totally unequipped to deal with snow and ice, and everything really was shut down. Sadly, there were accidents and injuries, and people really were stuck on I-35 for upwards of 14 hours, and tens of thousands were without power which isn’t funny at all. The grocery store was ridiculous however.
Tania Griffis is an accomplished writer, blogger, and interior designer with a Journalism degree from the University of Oklahoma. She started her popular blog, Run to Radiance, in 2011, demonstrating her design expertise through the personal remodeling of six houses to millions of readers across the globe.
Tania also owns The Creative Wheelhouse, a respected ghostwriting agency for bloggers, further showcasing her talent for creating engaging and informative content.
LOVE love love your recap of the icemageddon! It was too funny! We were content to stay home snuggled in blankets, but we woke up to our power out on Friday morning (it was out for 18 hours total, brr!) and I was NOT about to go without coffee. We joined the throng of locals at our local Tom Thumb Starbucks – bless the brave souls who opened that morning 🙂 It was a fun day – we ate out, drove on ice to the mall, saw a movie, stocked up on munchies (our grocery store was only cleared out of bottled water). Once we got home and the sun went down, I did despair a little, since it was less than 50 degrees in our house and dropping… Oh, and our fireplace is unfortunately non-functional. I’ve never been so happy to hear the hum of power again! We were joking – what in the world did people DO before central heat??
Anyway, sorry to write you a novel 🙂 I so enjoyed your humorous post and it’s so much fun to read about nearby places!
Oh no! Brynne so sorry about your power. That stinks! I’m impressed you got out and drove around..we were too chicken! 😛 I guess you could have surrounded yourselves with candles! 🙂 And glad you all survived the Icemagedon!!!!
This was great! Funny you found tortillas though, I’m your neighbor to the north (Tulsa, OK) and my Target was out of tortilla chips before the same storm! And sour cream, I was so annoyed that people bought all the sour cream! Apparently nachos are superior nutrition to help you survive winter storms. Better keep that in mind for the next magedon 🙂
Aw man! No chips and sour cream? How random is that!! I am also glad we found tortillas, everything else was gone or looked really suspect!! I had no ideas about the nachos, I’ll definitely stock up for the winter, hehe 🙂
Sadly, for 4-5 months of the year we get snowmagedon in Toronto. Love all your Christmas joymaking. It’s a great way to get through the toughest of weather
Oh that is sad! I am such a warm-weather girl! But I have heard Toronto is gorgeous…and people always look happy on the HGTV shows there. 🙂
LOVED reading your post on Icemagedon:) Too funny, and the pictures are great!
thank you! Sometimes we have to laugh through the tears. 🙂