All I Want for Christmas is SNOW!
I absolutely love snow. There’s something so pure, so clean, so…beautiful about it. Every year, I hope, wish and pray for snow at least once, even though
Central Texas isn’t really a place where it snows all that often. I’ve seen snow – real snow, as in more than a light dusting – a handful of times in my life.
I remember we got a pretty decent snowfall one year when I was in junior high school. We begged and pleaded with our English teacher to let us go out and play in it before
they cancelled classes for the day; most of us couldn’t even remember the last time it had really snowed in Midland, and we knew it would be gone the next day. Her stupidity kindness in letting
us out to play in the snow “for only five minutes” (that turned into about twenty minutes) is probably why I let my own students go play outside in the
“great snow of February 2010,” all two inches of it. I got in a bit of trouble for that move, but it was totally worth the sheer joy I saw on my kids’ faces. In
retrospect, had the kids not brought miniature snowballs back into the building, I probably would have survived the whole incident unnoticed… ah, well. Another
memorable snow storm occurred when we were visiting family in Boston for Christmas in 2005. It started snowing on Christmas day, and we awoke to eleven inches
of snow on the ground the following morning. It was surreal. I had never in my life seen that much snow actually stick to the ground and hang around for a week.
The highlight of the Boston snowstorm was watching my brother face-plant in the snow while trying to throw a snowball at me. That is karma at it’s best, people.
This year, as we were packing our bags and checking the Christmas weather forecast for Midland, you can imagine my delight when I read that there was a chance for “significant snowfall.” Not wanting to get my hopes up, I kept saying that snow was “possible but not probable.” Boy, was I wrong. It snowed ALL DAY LONG on Christmas Eve, and the snow stuck around so we were blessed with a white Christmas. Here are some of my favorite pictures (in reality, they’re really nice, clear shots; however, Scotty won’t let me upload full-resolution pictures because they are so big… 400X400 is what you get… sorry!):
That last one is us enjoying Christmas dinner with Scott’s side of the family - turkey, deviled eggs, baby carrots, cold beef tenderloin, sweet potato casserole, stuffing, gravy, dinner rolls, and a jello salad, Mmmmmm! Naturally we forgot to take pictures on my side of the family , so you’ll just have to imagine Mom, Dad, Robby, Nanny, Scott and me sitting around the kitchen table eating a baked ham, macaroni and cheese, and asparagus, followed by a chocolate pie. YUMMMMMMMMMM! I truly believe the only reason I didn’t eat myself to death is that we didn’t have both of those meals on a single day. We celebrated Christmas Eve with my side and Christmas day with Scott’s side. I’m so thankful our parents go out of their way to make the holidays no-stress for us. We are truly blessed to have such a wonderful family!! On a side note, it’s no wonder I used my Christmas money to buy an exercise ball, some free weights, and a foam mat. I’m going to spend the next month working off everything I ate, haha! We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas filled with family, fun, food, and the love of Jesus Christ. Here’s to a blessed and prosperous 2012!