Friday, December 25, 2009

White Christmas

It was twenty years ago when I experienced my first white Christmas.

I was living in North Carolina, right along the coast. The coast of NC rarely gets snow, if at all. Our winters were simply too warm. Any and all precipitation we would receive was in the form of rain. If we ever got any frozen forms, they were sleet or the ubiquitous freezing rain.

None of those are fun if you're a kid. When you're young, you want snow. That's just how it is. Especially around Christmas.

So in 1989, the Christmas week weather forecast called for rain with cold temps. But don't worry, the meteorologists all reassured, there was simply no way we would get snow. It was impossible.

But the impossible happened.

Saturday night, I was holed up in my bedroom, blaring Solid Gold Saturday Night from my stereo. Out of the blue, my dad called for me. So I trotted down the hallway and into the living room.

Dad had the curtains open and the floodlights on. There was something swirling in front of the bulbs. It didn't look like rain. Because it wasn't.

It was snow. We were getting snow. The impossible had happened.

The next day I awoke to a land covered in white and still more was falling. I was dressed and out the door before my parents could even blink.

I spent the better part of the day in the snow, cavorting like there was no tomorrow. I had never had such fun; we rarely got snow in that area of the country. But all good things must come to an end--eventually, the flakes stopped falling. But by that time (mid-afternoon), the ground was covered in a thick blanket. We had gotten eighteen inches.

The snow lasted for a week. The entire city was practically shut down, since most southerners had no idea how to drive in the frozen stuff. For weeks after the event we had letter after letter in the local paper complaining about it.

But for me, it was perfect. And it was the best Christmas present I could receive as a young teen--a once-in-a-lifetime event that I will never forget.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is a beautiful story, ever more so of the fact that it took place in the real of the real world, not fiction.:)

Hope your Ca$hma$ went well you 2. Have a happy new...decade.:)

~daiAtlas, hardly believing a decade ago we already knew each other as we transitioned into 2000. Such a lifetime ago. You 2 prove the more things change, they more they stay the same!:)

Weasel said...

That Christmas was, quite literally, something that came straight from a movie. We had experts saying that something of that magnitude was once in one hundred year event. I can believe it. Hurricane country does not get snow like that.

Ca$hma$ day was quiet; we'll be having the get-together in a few weeks. I hope to snap at least one shot of Prime opening something, just to irritate him. ;)