WHITE CHRISTMAS

Christmas of 1993, we boarded a train to travel to Virginia for our first Christmas away from home. That train trip has forever endeared train travel to me.

It’s my understanding that it does not snow in Virginia all that much.  However little it snows there, the frequency and amount are monumental when compared with our hometown snowfall totals.

If we get an inch of snow—that sticks for half a day—the schools close and people get off work early. College students flee their classrooms or dorm rooms and scoop up snow for snowball fights. The atmosphere is a cross between Mardi Gras and the county fair.

The last snowfall in our town came on a school day just as classes were ending for the day. That became the ideal time to pick our Christmas tree that year. Afterwards, we scraped the snow from the grassy median in front of our house and made a two foot tall snow man!  To us, snow is a lovely wonderful rare novelty.

As we chugged along to Virginia by train we talked of snow, hoped for snow, prayed for snow.  On Christmas Eve we made the inevitable one last trek to the store for an essential but overlooked ingredient. As we turned onto the street where we were visiting, the flakes began to fall.

During that evening, I sat by the window in the dark, looking out in absolute wonder. The incredible beauty of the falling snow and the silence of it struck me. It looked a little like rain as it fell, but it fell silently. Silent Night, Holy Night...

When we awoke, the evergreens were draped with snow. The view out the kitchen window was like the Christmas cards of my childhood.  Breath-taking…incredible to believe and yet the Christmas card scene was there-- right before my very eyes.

I could not wait to get outside! It was inches deep, soft, light fluffy.

I tasted it—no taste--just cool lightness that melted in an instant. I made snow angels…I had seen that in the movie Love Story. It was even cooler to make them than to have seen them made.

Later we sledded down the slope of the backyard. This is more fun in retrospect than it was at the time. I was much more of a “control freak” then than I am now:  I sledded with my foot on the brake…most of the time.

I am really glad that I took what seemed to me to be a great risk at the time; there were so many tall pines, thickly covering that slope. But-- everyone else seemed to be enjoying sledding so much… I felt the fear and tried it anyway.

The snow fell again over the next days and on the train ride home it continued to snow. If that Christmas Eve snowfall had been beautiful, the scenes from the train windows were majestic.

There were huge mounds, many tall snow men, plowed furrows of snow pushed and piled to sides of walkways and roadways. I could not take my eyes from the window, during the day and into the night.  Christmas lights reflected off the snow. 

Little Christmas trees  stood here and there, seemingly all alone, standing sentry in the snow drifts.  The scenes were exquisite: beautiful, charming, romantic and nostalgic… all at once.

Christmas 1993 was our first white Christmas. Now, I know what all the wistfulness is all about.