Winter Wonderland? What's That??

Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois.  The Blizzard of January 30, 2011

Doug:  Karen and I were corresponding the other day about winters and Christmases.  I've always lived in the northern part of the United States -- almost all of my life in a town about 50 miles south of the heart of Chicago, and a brief three year stint in Milwaukee, Wisconsin when I was in elementary school.  So when you talk "Christmas" to me, there had better be snow.  Which is funny, because I learned just last week that my wife's family from Texas never sees Christmas marketing that involves snow.  Whereas everything peddled from beer to automobiles has a peaceful, snowy motif in the television ads viewed in Chicagoland, they said they see none of that.  And to show that we are indeed hearty individuals here in the Great White North (cue Geddy Lee...), the blurry cellphone photo below was taken on a cold windy night, with the breeze cutting in off Lake Michigan.  But it was a blast!

Last Christmas, Lincoln Park "Zoo Lights"

Doug:  So in the evolution of thought, I wondered -- wow, how many of our readers have never experienced a snow day from school or work? Those are treasured memories -- whether I was a child or even now as an adult.  There is simply nothing better than laying next to the radio at 5:45 am and hearing the name of my school on the "closed" list.  Yeeee-eeeesssss!  As a kid, those days would then be filled with building snowmen or snow forts, playing football in knee deep snow (talk about a work-out!) and of course sledding.  We have a river that runs through our town, and about the only hills around are the small bluffs that form the upper banks.  There have been some parks built near the water, as I'm sure is the case in many communities with such a resource.  Anyway, the best place in town for sledding is "Poop Hill", aptly named since the park is adjacent to the local water treatment facility.  Yep -- in the summers there is a distinctive odor in that neighborhood, if you know what I mean.  On a great winter day, after the snow had packed down a bit, one could pick up some tremendous speed on the run; I'd estimate from top to bottom the hill is close to 100 yards.  A wooden snow fence guarded the bottom of the hill, but I can recall many times when it would come apart and folks would end up in the river.  The best part of the hill was a spot over to the left where a large rock was partially exposed -- hitting that baby on a toboggan would get some big air, which was always a blast!

Christmas tree outside Karen's work in Phoenix

Karen: I told Doug when we were chatting about this that I was afraid my experiences would be somewhat lame in comparison. Having grown up in the central coast region of California, I never had a white Christmas -in fact, I didn't see snow until I was 15! At most, our Christmases might be rainy. But there were many a Christmas from my childhood that were dry and sunny, with temps around 65F! This meant that we frequently got "outside" toys for Christmas; bikes, footballs -I fondly recall getting a blue skateboard when I was 12! Luckily the weather was good and I was able to go outside and ride that thing up and down the street -and fall not a few times as I attempted some tricks.  One year my brother got a remote controlled car and we had a blast taking it out and crashing it -I mean, racing it. I sometimes wondered about snow -I mean, all the Christmas movies and TV specials had snow -but even without it, as long as there were Christmas lights and decorations, trees, and cookies, it felt like Christmas to me.  Here's a  tradition from the west coast that I bet my partner hasn't heard of: Christmas tamales. It just doesn't feel like the holidays if I can't get my hands on some tamales. Preferably home-made, but I'll take the store or restaurant variety too.

Doug:  Nope -- those would definitely clash with warm spiced apple cider or hot chocolate!