Oh, The First Snow Fall of the Winter

The question of the week is: Do we have First Day of Winter or First Snowfall traditions?

Um, no.

When I was a kid it was exciting to see snow. I grew up in the Washington, DC suburbs and only three inches of the white stuff would get us out of school. Every few years we had real snow and I remember a few blizzards, none of which were exciting once I was grown and had to clean off cars and commute, or cancel plans.

I moved out west and in the short time I spent in Idaho, it snowed like crazy and I wasn’t unhappy with it since I expected it, but then I wasn’t jumping up and down about it, either.

Afterwards, I moved to the Denver area, where we got plenty of snow, however, it usually  inconvenienced us for only a  day. Colorado is not only prepared, (most of the time), for snow removal, but being a mile or so in altitude lends itself to solar energy that will melt most of the residual snow from scraped roads in short order.

Now I have been in Kentucky for over twenty years, and we don’t often have big snows. All the kids are thrilled when it really does come down. They get out of school and can sled, but most of the time sleds and coasters stay in the garage. We get big ice storms every few years which are beautiful, but dangerous. We lose power and the roads are treacherous, even deadly.

[One “tradition”, if we can stretch the meaning, is to bring our kerosene heater into the house before ice-storm season. It seems that if we do, we don’t need it, however, the years we have not, we have had to slip and slide to the storage barn or garage to bring it in when the power has gone out. We did it yesterday, but since the Husband put it off, it’s no-go with our generator. I have a large freezer filled to capacity. Keep your fingers crossed, as we are expecting a huge snowfall today after a fair one a few days ago. If I fail to answer you soon, my power may be out.]

The first Day of Winter does only one thing for me…I get to rejoice in the fact that the days will start getting longer minute by minute, day by day, but do I mark it with a celebration? Again, um, no. It falls just before Christmas and I am busy with preparation for THAT celebration. And I can’t imagine what I would do to mark longer days…sacrifice?

I know a writer who did a blog post about her teenage son and what he wanted to do for school during “Snow Week”. They live in Minnesota and every year somewhere between January and February, they embrace all their snow and get out of post-holiday doldrums by all sorts of fun activities, including the crowning of Snow Kings and Queens. I asked, “You live in Minnesota and you bother to celebrate snow for only a WEEK?” She answered, “Yes, I guess it should be a month, right?” I think it’s a pretty good idea, since most years they have snow long before January, early February, and it is also usually a long haul yet to come before it ends. So they give the kids a break and have a (snow) ball…but that isn’t their first snow, by a long shot.

I assume about everyone has weighed-in all week on First Snows, First Day of Winter.

What do you think of “Snow Week”?

I have always liked this song, which just popped into my mind and I can’t think of a better place to share it:

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