We just got back from a glorious two weeks in Arizona.
I love spending Christmas with my family. When Kyle and I first got married we thought our system would be to alternate between spending Christmas in Arizona with my people and Alberta with his. After one year of not being at home (my home) for Christmas, I decided that that was a stupid idea: we spend 11 months of the year in Canada every year, and we shouldn’t have to share Christmas too. Kyle didn’t argue—he loves Christmas in Arizona—so it was settled.
After that, the notion was tucked neatly away into the recesses of our minds and we’ve spent every Christmas in Arizona since.
It’s ironic, really, because as a kid I used to fantasize about white snowy Christmases, the kind you see in movies throughout November and December. I hated that Arizona was so bland and boring and un-wintery. Wouldn’t it be fun to go ice skating and wear mittens and drink hot cocoa? I would love to try sledding and snowshoeing and sleigh riding and wearing earmuffs. What would it be like to build snowmen and make snow angels and snow forts and feel cold?
I’ll tell you what it’s like: IT’S WRETCHED.
A lot of people can’t fathom Christmas without snow, and although it seems pretty cozy on Christmas morning while you’re warm in your fuzzy socks and PJs with the white stuff out the window, the fact remains that it’s a miracle if you even make it to December 25th in a snowy place without losing your freaking mind. Running around like a crazy person with baking to do, presents to buy or make, and Costco crowds to fight is bad enough when the roads are bare and dry…but add slick and slippery streets to the mix and it’s enough to send anyone to the madhouse. You have to drive well under the speed limit everywhere you go to avoid disasters, and consequently arrive late everywhere you go. You have to slow down MILES ahead of a stop light so you don’t rear-end the car in front of you, or worse, slide through the intersection and get T-boned by traffic going the other way. You have to wear tons of layers to keep warm from the car to the store but then immediately swelter once you get inside either. You lose your mittens and freeze your hands. You slip on ice in a busy parking lot and almost get run down by cars who also slip while they’re trying to stop from hitting you. You track sludgy snowy slush into every room in your house unless you take your boots off every time you go inside, which makes unloading a truck full of groceries a real delight. And you probably deal with all of these miseries with a wicked runny nose, because the cold has a tendency to do that.
Yet through it all, there’s at least the joy of Christmas hanging in the future to look forward to. It makes everything worth it, at least a little.
But once the holidays are over the gloom really begins, because there’s nothing cheerful to inspire you anymore when you live in a snowy place.
After Christmas the only thing we snow people have to keep us going is the anticipation of that mid-February tropical cruise we’re taking to escape the drudgery…that is, if we’re taking any such cruise.
Which sadly I am not.
And which leaves but one solution: flip Canada the bird and power pop the Vitamin D until May rolls around.
2 Responses to On Snow