Ice and Snow
I was convinced that every yuletide of my youth was a frosty winter wonderland. As previously mentioned, I am absolutely a product of the American midwest, born and mostly raised where annual weather patterns were defined by cut out cardboard schoolroom decorations atop the blackboards: a pretty spring flower, a yellow summer sun, a bright orange autumn leaf, and either a giant crystalline flake or a Classic Snowman with top hat, red scarf and carrot nose.
So though I did remember nearly ALL of the Christmases from my childhood as snow-covered Norman Rockwell paintings, I recently found a chart showing the actual weather in Kansas City for the last seventy Christmases. Out of my first 18, only 4 of them actually had snow on the ground on that day.
My wife is a Northern Californian. She never knew snow as a child, on Christmas or nearly any other winter’s day.
My cousins in Texas could go swimming after Christmas dinner (ok: well, an hour after Christmas dinner).
But I grew up with an annual anticipation of a White Christmas. This extremely hummable meterologic aspiration taunts us every year, and is so connected with the holiday that it necessitates movies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on snow effects to make the scenes “convincing”.
Because whether or not it’s true for us personally, Christmas, in general, is snowy. It snows at the North Pole, it snowed in Southtown (for one day), it snowed in Bedford Falls (thanks to Clarence). Halloween is pumpkins. Thanksgiving is turkey, Fourth of July is fireworks. Easter’s a colored egg, New Year’s is… well, also fireworks, but Christmas lights shine brightest either out of the darkness of night or the smooth blank canvas of a winter’s snowfall.
Snow is only weather, but at the right time and in the right dosage, it’s also kind of a miracle. I don’t know why I thought it snowed every Christmas. Perhaps my head is a snow globe, and when I bring up memories of Christmases I just kind of shake it a bit. That would explain quite a lot about me, actually.
Pico and Sepulveda
The true gift of gifting
Is what it means inside
We can show we care
Spreading love far and wide.
– My Little Pony : Best Gift Ever
My extended family is small but precious, a priceless collection of exceptional individuals whom I feel deeply connected to, no matter how long it’s been since we’ve seen one another. It is such a rare collection that I wonder how, mathematically, I was lucky enough to run across each one of them in a world of…
[…hey Siri: how many people are in the world right now?]
…7 billion 846 million people.
One of these wonderful people is getting married next year, to a wonderful man who is kind and tall and smart and good looking: they’re very well matched. She brought him over for dinner before they were officially engaged, and I’m not ashamed to admit we tried to size him up, which didn’t take that long because he’s entirely delightful.
She brought him back for dinner a few weeks ago, but now that they were “official” I found the situation reversed: I wanted to make a good impression, I was someone he was gonna have to be around now, a number in his phone he was gonna have to pick up ‘cause it was gonna be on that list that your phone lets ring even when you’re not taking calls just in case or whatever.
We spoke about politics, employment, government, real grown up stuff. I was visibly sweating, but felt confident, a little nervous the conversation might veer into sports and my eyes would show True Fear as I vamped about the Chiefs for 30 seconds until I could make a sharp left at Taylor Swift™ and talk about music.
But the most amazing thing happened. He mentioned his favorite Christmas album, which happened to be a collection of vintage novelty holiday songs collected by the madcap radio host Dr. Demento, and said he hadn’t heard it in years. I got up from the table while he was still talking and pulled out my copy. And it was a moment, folks, a real moment, one of those two people in sync beats where you understand them and they understand you and it’s all gonna be ok – Twilight Sparkle was right, friendship IS the greatest gift, and my friend had not only shared the person she loved, but brought over somebody I could play with, which for an only child is just about the coolest thing ever. Maybe we’ll build a fort.
(Oh! I gotta find my Hot Wheels!)
Merry and Bright
My favorite Christmas album is The Partridge Family Christmas Card. My mother bought it in 1971. I listened to it every single year, and treated it with pristine respect, so I never actually removed the outside plastic. So I never actually understood that the envelope pattern on the front of the album cover was an actual envelope, and INSIDE that envelope was an actual Christmas card, signed by all the Partridge Family. I didn’t find that out until 1983, right before I went to college. It was a pretty magical day.
If I could send you all a card to thank you for your time, it would be this one: maybe not the card itself, but that feeling of discovering something wonderful in something you’ve seen a million times before. May your holiday bring surprise and delight, warmth and laughter, and may peace and love surround you at Christmastime, and all the whole year through.
This and That.