It’s SNOWING! This morning I left the house and it was raining cats and dogs for the second day in a row. Unfortunately, it was 20 degrees colder outside this morning compared with yesterday. Needless to say, it was a pretty miserable drive and walk to work. The rain switched over to snow around 9am and there are already snowplows and shovels emerging outside our building. I can’t help but have a big, goofy grin on my face. I know I’ll be sick of it in a few months (maybe not even that long), but right now it’s a beautiful sight. Snow in NC was a rarity and when it did come, we had no property on which to enjoy it.
It feels much more like the Christmas season when it’s snowing outside too. North Carolinian Christmases were kind of lame. VWH and I bought a very small, very fake tree from WalMart and set it up in our living area. (I can’t really call it a room…) We had a few ornaments and eventually placed some gifts and Christmas cards we received underneath. It was fine. But it wasn’t really Christmas. Christmas means family and wonderful music and homemade cookies and game nights and SNOW.
Remember when you were little and waking up on Christmas morning was the most incredible feeling in the world? Remember when you couldn’t wait to rip into your gifts and see what awesome stuff you got? My overriding Christmas-morning emotion as an oldest child consisted largely of impatience. Waiting to head downstairs took an eternity because Mom and Dad insisted on taking our picture beforehand, and then went ahead into the living room so they could capture our expressions when we saw the tree. (The longer this took the less happy we looked at the other end.) Then, once we finally made it downstairs we had to endure the yearly discussion as to whether we were going to open gifts first or eat breakfast. Dad always wanted food first and the rest of us responded by saying, essentially, “Are you NUTS?!? There are presents to open and you want to linger over the breakfast table?” This group included my mother and also our dog.
By the time we convinced Dad, once again, that breakfast could wait and the presents absolutely could NOT, we launched into phase 3. Phase 3 can be subtitled, “Oh boy! Let’s open one gift at a time and take delight in each person’s individual happiness.” When I was but a wee tyke, phase 3 proved to be very impractical. I would assist in expediting the process by ‘helping’ my younger brothers with their gifts. Seriously, if you're still too young to control your drool, you’re probably not going to be able to unwrap your new Tonka truck. This reasoning was frowned upon by my parents, and we have a few too many Christmas video tapes illustrating my abundance of…excitement…in sharing the Christmas spirit with my brothers. (In my defense, they didn’t seem to care too much.)
By the time we finished unwrapping gifts (“MO-OOOMM…you got me underwear again?!?”) and had our picture taken a zillion times and hugged everybody 5 times over we were pooped. In hindsight, Mom and Dad must have been absolutely exhausted…and it wasn’t even 10AM yet. We eventually got around to eating the delicious Christmas breakfast Mom made, satisfying my dad, who is patience personified. Then we gathered as much of our new stuff as we were permitted and piled into the van for Christmas #2 at the grandparents’ abode.
It’s funny how things change. It’s still all well and good to receive nice presents for Christmas. A small part of the excitement in getting new things remains when I awaken on Christmas morn. But most of the joy I experience now is reflected in the faces of my family and friends. It really is better to give then to receive. And if you are too young to understand that now, give it some time. You might come around yet. If not, let’s at least all agree that the white, fluffy snow helps promote the festivities. J
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