"Blizzarding," he answers, and there really is something cheerful in there. "You were worried we wouldn't have enough food to make it to New Year's Eve if it didn't let up, so I promised to go out and hunt a deer for you, if it got that bad."

Which probably would have left them with no food and a case of full-body frostbite, so it's better that he hadn't had to. "We had plenty of champagne, though. A bunch of food. A bearskin rug in front of the fireplace. And when it finally stopped snowing, we found snowshoes in a closet. We went for a walk, and the sun on the snow was dazzling."