snow

MAN! I love snow. I love most everything from Thanksgiving until about the second week in January. I'll explain why.

Thanksgiving marks the beginning of that time of year when everyone sort of turns into a Christian. Everyone is so nice and generous and forgiving (I know, I know... not ALL Christians are like that, just the good ones). You look forward to getting together with your family, no matter how little you like them. You put aside petty differences, you look past age-old offenses (like when my older brother hand-cuffed me to a telephone pole and left for an hour, during which it started to rain, and then came back drunk). You think more about giving than receiving. It's just a very, very warm month, from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

Then comes the New Year. What's not to love? That imagined fresh start. The built-in excuse to keep gorging yourself on holiday cookies (because you'll go on a diet after the New Year). And then everyone makes ridiculously outlandish proclamations of planned morality and we watch a bunch of exploding projectiles fly through the sky, ignoring the fact that we're at war with a nation who has been doing this exact thing since time out of mind. Also, we're all drunk.

Then, just as we're getting over the hoo-ha, my birthday. Whatever I didn't get for Christmas, I get for my birthday. And people either get really excited for me because they just aren't done celebrating the holidays yet and they need an excuse to get all bouncy and weird, or they ignore it completely because they were done celebrating on December the sixth.

I love the wardrobe change from summer to winter. I'm a chubby sort of fellow and I don't fancy showing off my goods everyday, in other words, shorts are not my friend. I like wrapping up in ratty old sweaters and warm pants and I like wearing scarves around the house and I like feeling like a bear, assuming that a bear has a self-defeating personality disorder and a crippling fear of failure.

I don't even mind shoveling the driveway. In fact, I kind of enjoy it. I would much rather do it by hand with a shovel than with a snow-blower. It's just that peaceful rhythm. The method, the progress, the whole problem and solution thing. A snow-blower just cheapens the whole thing. It's loud and clumsy and it fills the air with noxious fumes. To me, clearing the driveway with a shovel rather than with a snow-blower is like making a birthday card instead of going out and buying one. Or baking cookies from scratch instead of picking up a couple dozen from the Wal-Mart bakery.

Also, as we run a daycare and most of our parents are teachers, we find ourselves taking a rather juvenile interest in the school delays and closings. An extra half-hour in the morning is wonderful when you have to get up at 6:30, which I know isn't SUPER early, but I am not a morning person. At all. I've never been a morning person. I doubt it will ever seep into my blood. So, that extra few minutes (few hours, if there's a closing) is a blessing.

That being said, I will be done.