Winter Wonderland

by Nancy

We had a gray Christmas, not a white one, with rain most of the day yesterday. Not quite the ambiance we've been trained to expect. As the dh said, "No one wrote a song dreaming of a wet Christmas." And Charles Dickens didn't write about rain in A Christmas Carol. We would've liked just a bit of the white stuff--a few flurries, perhaps, though the boy believes "snow when [he's] out of school is wasted snow."

I imagine those of you looking at anything from multiple inches to a couple of feet of snow may wonder if I know what I'm saying, especially if the snow canceled your travel plans. And I do understand that snow presents anything from an inconvenience to a confounded nuisance to a danger. Yet snow has always had a mystique here in the central Carolinas, probably because we have it so seldom. I've had snow on the brain lately, in part because of my new fixation with the Times of London website, which featured snow so heavily this past week (including the Dickens article in the link above), and because of the nasty storm crippling the central US this week. However, I actually got the idea for this blog while watching the dh's favorite holiday movie, A Christmas Story, yesterday afternoon.

At the end of the movie, the parents sit in the darkened living room with light coming only from the tree lights and from streetlights shining through falling snow outside. And they comment on the beauty of the scene. It struck me then, obvious though this may have been to others, that it isn't really the snow that's beautiful, at least not for me. It's what light does to snow and vice-versa.

Light shining through or reflecting off snow gives it a fairyland sheen. The snow covers the bumps and rough spots of the ground underneath, diffusing the light so everything glistens as though it had a magical coating. The shadows become more obvious than they would be on grass, and there's an aura of magic about the whole thing. At least for those of us who don't live with in week in and week out. I suspect this is all a matter of perspective, but I did enjoy looking at photos of snowy scenes from around the world.


Ice is dangerous--ask anyone. We've had ice storms here that brought down limbs on power lines and roofs and caused terrible hardships. Black ice caused a horrible bus crash in Cornwall last week. Yet seeing the sun shine through that ice coating a limb gives it a silvery, ethereal beauty made all the stronger because it's fleeting. That very sunlight that creates the beauty will soon destroy it.

Snow used to be a "get out of school free" card. Around here, we know we don't understand how to drive in snow, so most of us try not to. Yet there are always people who have to. For them, I'm sure, the snow is not so much a beauty as a nuisance. When I had to drive to work on snow-over-ice, I didn't love it so much. Still, I fondly remember sledding down a slick street with my friends in high school. No one else was out, and I worked up my courage by starting halfway down the hill and then going progressively higher. Because my companions were lifelong friends, nobody gave me any grief about being afraid of speed.

What about you? Is snow a blessing or a bane to you? Or both?

In the spirit of Boxing Day, I'm boxing up and sending to one commenter a duplicate soundtrack of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Black Pearl I somehow acquired. It's still in the packaging, but I don't have the receipt, so it's offered unused but "as is." I also have a signed copy of Warrior's Lady donated by Gerri Russell and a copy (not signed) of Don't Bargain with the Devil donated by Sabrina Jeffries.

This is my last blog post of 2009, so Happy Boxing Day and best wishes for a healthy, happy 2010!