Snow Thankful

The landscape last week transformed in a blink from dull November to dazzling winter. Tuesday the kids scored a snow day from school – an occurrence so rare in these parts that it threw us all for a loop.

At first, I was aggravated by this unanticipated day off from school, which came after a three-day weekend and on top of a to-do list already lengthened by two days away the previous week. The kids, of course, were thrilled – both by the bonus day off and by the snow quickly covering the world outside.

As I shuffled my schedule to accommodate work and mom duties, they dug out winter gear and headed out to play. Occasionally I’d glance up from the keyboard, relocated for the day to the dining room table, and catch a glimpse of a sled flying by or a shovel being dragged into the front yard or a snowman taking shape in the frosted-over perennial bed.

It was perfect “snowball snow” – wet, dense, and easy to shape. Soon the kids had figured out that if they started at one end of the yard with a fistful of packed snow and kept rolling, they ended up at the other end with haybale-shaped snow forms nearly as high as they were. Slowly, the yard filled with large snow sculptures.

Try as I did to focus on the tasks staring at me from my computer screen, the fun being had outside was a consistent distraction. There’s something about that first snowfall that calls to my inner child: come out and play! (OK, OK, it’s not just the FIRST snowfall, but the opening act of the season pulls my focus to unravelling.)

Eventually, I gave up and pulled on snow boots, jacket, and mittens to join the fun. I helped the kids roll bigger and bigger snow bales, packing and lifting and piling the wet, heavy snow where they directed. At one edge of the yard, my son built an igloo, heaping snow into a huge mound and hollowing it out from within. My daughters rolled snow, one giant ball at a time, into a circle to create a Stonehenge-looking fort, complete with seats and backrests and an arced door to crawl through for entry.

The temperature dropped that night, freezing the kids’ soft-snow creations into solid forms in the front yard. Since then, they’ve been dusted by flurries, softened by the sun, and refrozen several times.

And the kids have spent hours outside – in both daylight and the pre-dinner darkness of November evenings – careening down our tiny sledding hill, fitting sneakers into old ski bindings to slide around the yard, adding features to their initial snow creations, and joining an epic snowball fight.

Beyond transforming the landscape and providing the kids with endless opportunities for outdoor fun, the snow has helped me to shift more readily toward winter, too.

While much of my work this time of year – and beyond – relates directly to snow and skiing, I have been hesitant lately to embrace the busyness the season brings. I was lamenting the dark and the cold, the arrival of endless early mornings for the next many months, the severe diminishment of downtime.

That all changed as the world transitioned to white last week. I’m ready now. Let it snow. 

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her blog, Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the November 23, 2018 issue of the Littleton Record.

Snow Day (Sort Of)

Tuesday morning I awoke to the aggravating sound of sleet pelting the bedroom windows. I much prefer the soft whisper of snowflakes to the sideways assault of frozen water, for a whole host of reasons. One is that whispers are easier to sleep through.

What a snow day should look like...

Regardless, the kids were happy to have a day off from school, even if it was more of a “sleet day” than a “snow day.”

Snow days (or sleet-and-freezing-rain days) are the only chance my brood gets to sleep in during the winter. Otherwise, we are up early for school, and just as early – sometimes earlier – for weekend skiing. It was nice Tuesday not to have to drag the kids out of bed in the dark of a winter morning.

Instead, they emerged on their own time, all tousle-haired and sleepy-eyed – and confused about why they were allowed to sleep late (which, in our house, means 7 o’clock). “No school? A snow day?” asked my son when he heard the news. “Yes!”

It’s been a while since we’ve had a snow day. When the kids were younger, we used to build little kickers in the back yard on the rare weather-induced day off. The kids would fly off the jumps on sleds or skis and come back inside with rosy cheeks and wet mittens.

Or we’d make snow creatures in the front yard. Some winters we’ve had such a huge pile of snow at the edge of the driveway, the kids could build snow forts complete with sitting areas and tunnels and exit slides.

We haven’t had a snowbank worthy of a fort for a couple of winters now. In December the snow-building opportunities seemed to be looking up. The plow had made decent piles in the fort area. Elsewhere in the yard, the kids had shaped and piled blocks of snow to make the start of an igloo. There was even a small snowman – until the puppy ate it.

Alas, all that white stuff has long since melted. Tuesday’s warm temps and so-called “mixed precipitation” resulted mainly in our driveway-turned-skating-rink melting out – again – into large puddles of slush. There was not enough snow to make even one snowball, let alone an elaborate structure.

Instead, we went for a long walk in the woods, discovering ice-fringed hemlock and beech branches before the temperature warmed to a melting degree. In the shelter of the trees, the mixed precip had left enough white to make a satisfying crunch underfoot, although we had to step carefully through the not-quite-frozen marshy area along our route.

Despite the sad, snowless state of the yard, the sleet day timing was perfect. The day before, two of these children had pulled in quite the haul of birthday presents, which they now had time to properly explore. One kid was recovering from a cold, and we both appreciated the bonus relaxation time to push her back toward healthy.

The day also left us with time for catch-up chores. In the process of cleaning up, lost mittens were found buried under the birthday goodies, new clothes given as Christmas presents were unearthed in the corner of a bedroom, and long-forgotten toys were happily rediscovered.

There were also a few rounds of board games played, some quiet coloring time, bouts of spontaneous snuggling, and – of course – the arguments that come from too much together time.

By the end of the day, the puppy and I were both exhausted, even if the kids seemed rejuvenated by this bonus day off. I thought of my friend in Tahoe, where they’ve received something like 300 inches (that’s 25 feet!) of snow this month. Her kids have had 10 snow days in the last few weeks. That means they’ve been out of school almost twice as many days as they’ve been in.

While the occasional snow day is a nice pause in routine, I’m not sure I’d take 10 of them in a month. But I sure would like some of that snow.
 
Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her Blog: Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the January 27, 2016 edition of the Littleton Record.