Snowtravaganza

I can't really remember the last time we had a white Christmas...but I can guarantee that, at least in my memory, there has never been one like this. On Saturday, December 19, we watched it snow. And snow. And snow. We spent the day taking pictures of our disappearing patio furniture (why do people always take pictures of their lawn furniture when it snows?), the yardstick planted firmly at 8 AM in 8 inches of snow on the table. We (JC, that is; I was not allowed) ventured out occasionally to shovel the snow that was encroaching on the doors and threatening to seal us inside. The day ended with about 17-18 inches on the ground (and table)--a record for December snowfall.

It is pretty, and we have the pictures to prove it. But snow is also a phenomenal nuisance when it comes down to everyday living. All jokes about toilet paper, milk and bread aside, it gets difficult to do all the stuff we need to do on a daily basis, particularly when serious attention has to be paid to avoiding slips and falls and the possible disastrous results. Doctors' appointments, lab visits, even our furnace and heat pump check-up may need rearrangement. Parties have been canceled or re-scheduled, dinners postponed, and we are enjoying a strange variety in our own meals, which are dependent on what happens to be in the freezer and pantry.

Add to that the physical hard labor of shoveling this mountainous pile of snow that envelops the area....though we were fortunate in having some itinerant shovelers shanghaied by a neighbor into clearing a car-width path up our alley (now, of course, reduced to an ice floe by last night's re-freeze.) Still, even when we get out of the alley and onto a secondary road, the sidewalk paths are narrow and inexpertly cleared. Some are blocked with yellow tape, warning of potential roof slides of snow, along with icicles hanging from 3rd-story roof lines that could skewer the unwary passer-by if they took the notion to break free at the wrong time. Intersections are slushy and/or frozen into solid ruts that are slippery and irregular and dangerous to pedestrians (as well as the drivers) who traverse them.

BUT Christmas is coming, and though the stockings may not be stuffed as full as they usually are (Mrs. Santa having been confined to home and hearth by the blizzard) there should be no dearth of good cheer. Though Christmas dinner may be non-traditional if the cook can't get to the grocery store, Christmas will be as it should be: more attuned to who is around the table than what is on it, more concerned with the love around the tree than the gifts arrayed under it, and more focused on Who has come than on where we have to go.

God bless us, every one. (And please, please, please melt this stuff!)