For the December newsletter at my church, I wrote how much I was looking forward to experiencing my first white Christmas. As a kid growing up in California, I’d watch Christmas movies, with snowflakes drifting through the sky and snow collecting in lovely curved lines in the corners of windows. The living room of my childhood had a 9 paned window. I imagined what it would look like, with snow collecting in the corners of all 9 window panes. I loved the Christmas story in Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, when they got snowed in, but their friend was able to get through with some gifts, including a candy cane. I bet no candy ever tasted as good as that one. In memory of this story I have brownie mix in my cupboard being saved for our first time feeling snowed in.
But now locals are apologizing to me for the brown Christmas, as if they had control over it. It did snow a little on Christmas day, just enough for a light dusting, but nothing that stuck. We had planned to get our daughter snow toys for Christmas. We changed our plans. And perhaps this is what I have learned so far this winter. Weather can change my plans. There was the night of the freezing rain when we chose to take city streets home from the mall, instead of the freeway. We made it onto the freeway, but my husband immediately started looking for the next exit. So far my plans have not been drastically thwarted by weather, except for missing the magic of a white Christmas.
I guess that gives me something to look forward to for my second Christmas in Minnesota. I have read that the second winter is worse. During the first winter everything is new and that’s exciting. The second winter is when it is really supposed to hit me how much changes because of the weather.
I have brought one thing with me from California that made this Christmas a little brighter. (Well, two things if you count my family as the first) and that’s a good attitude about the brown grass. You see, in northern California we have these rolling hills of natural grasses. They are green for a few weeks each spring, but they don’t stay that way long. You can tell a native Californian because they will see the hills as golden, not brown. And indeed they are golden when the setting sun hits them and golden like the soft yellow gold of wheat fields in the afternoon sun. So, I have decided to call this my Golden Christmas in Minnesota and to relish in the fact that my backyard is a sea of golden grass just waiting for snow. They keep telling me the snow is inevitable, but I am learning to just take each weather day as it comes.
But now locals are apologizing to me for the brown Christmas, as if they had control over it. It did snow a little on Christmas day, just enough for a light dusting, but nothing that stuck. We had planned to get our daughter snow toys for Christmas. We changed our plans. And perhaps this is what I have learned so far this winter. Weather can change my plans. There was the night of the freezing rain when we chose to take city streets home from the mall, instead of the freeway. We made it onto the freeway, but my husband immediately started looking for the next exit. So far my plans have not been drastically thwarted by weather, except for missing the magic of a white Christmas.
I guess that gives me something to look forward to for my second Christmas in Minnesota. I have read that the second winter is worse. During the first winter everything is new and that’s exciting. The second winter is when it is really supposed to hit me how much changes because of the weather.
I have brought one thing with me from California that made this Christmas a little brighter. (Well, two things if you count my family as the first) and that’s a good attitude about the brown grass. You see, in northern California we have these rolling hills of natural grasses. They are green for a few weeks each spring, but they don’t stay that way long. You can tell a native Californian because they will see the hills as golden, not brown. And indeed they are golden when the setting sun hits them and golden like the soft yellow gold of wheat fields in the afternoon sun. So, I have decided to call this my Golden Christmas in Minnesota and to relish in the fact that my backyard is a sea of golden grass just waiting for snow. They keep telling me the snow is inevitable, but I am learning to just take each weather day as it comes.