Hello, Ski Season

Winter arrives in a rush for my family this weekend. Never mind that we haven’t reached Thanksgiving yet, or that we’re still a month away from the Solstice, or that it has felt and looked like winter for the past two weeks.

The Ski Season part of our Winter starts in earnest Saturday morning, and there’s no way, really, to ease into that – no matter how much I love Winter.

While others lamented the early arrival of cold and snow last week, I was thrilled to see the landscape covered in white. I am happy when Winter comes suddenly, putting a quick end to Stick Season – that time post-fall-foliage and pre-snowfall – which is my least favorite.

The kids were ecstatic to wake up to their first snow day of the school year, tacked onto the end of what was already a long weekend. They rolled out of bed with more enthusiasm than on any school day and were soon outside. By the end of the day, there was a snowman in the yard, a hodgepodge of sleds cluttering the front porch, and a pile of winter boots crowding the shoe tray by the radiator.

Ski Season, though, feels like a different (albeit related) entity from Winter.

As ski racers (the kids) and coach (me), Ski Season occupies our weekends and vacation days fully for the next four and a half months. And while I love to ski, and I love to coach, and I love to watch my kids and their friends at ski races, sometimes this season – with its early mornings, challenging weather, and the constant need to tune skis – seems all-encompassing.

This winter lifestyle is what my kids have always known. They love to ski, too. But we all realized last weekend that it was our final chance for a long while to sleep past dawn, linger over breakfast, and chill out in PJs well into the day.

Come Saturday, we’ll be up and at ’em and out of the house before I’ve made it through my first cup of coffee.

While this will be the official start of Ski Season for my family, I’ve already put in some time on skis. I’ve donned the old cross-country gear to glide through the woods on November snow with the dog. Last Wednesday I sprang two of the kids from school early to take a few runs at Bretton Woods on opening day. I returned a few days ago to check out the new gondola and sneak in a some ski time with my dad.

We’ve picked up our season passes from Cannon, the skis are waxed and ready for the weekend, and I feel confident that the kids all know where their boots and helmets and various warm layers are. That doesn’t mean getting out of the house Saturday won’t be a cluster. It just means we’re as ready as we can be for Ski Season to start.

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 22, 2019 issue of the Littleton Record.

Anatomy of a Snow Day

There was little better as a kid during winter than waking up on a snowy day and learning school would be cancelled. Of course, during my school years, that meant rising at the regular early hour and turning the T.V. to the local station to stare at the list of delays and cancellations scrolling up the screen, hoping to see my school there.

If it was, the day unfolded happily in my mind. Extra time in PJs. Reading by the fire. Sledding with friends. Wet mittens, hot cocoa, rosy cheeks.

My kids feel the same sort of snow day joy, although they don’t have to stare at the television to find out if school is off. Now, we receive the message in multiple ways – by text, email, phone call. And a snow day often means a powder day at the mountain, which makes all of us happy.

Here’s what a snow day looks like from this snow-loving mom’s perspective.

4:45 a.m.: Wake up and turn phone on to see if school has been delayed. No text. Lie in the dark, partly trying to go back to sleep, but mostly wondering when the text will come in.

5:16 a.m.: Phone buzzes with two-hour school delay message from superintendent, followed one minute later by house phone ringing with two-hour delay message, then cell phone call with same message.

5:18 a.m.: Check WMUR website to see what other schools are delayed. Notice some have already called a full snow day. Wonder about the likelihood of that happening here.

5:30 a.m.: Give up trying to sleep. Get up, turn coffee maker on, head to office and attempt to meet the day’s deadlines before the kids wake up. Continue to be distracted by the chance that school will be canceled.

6:47 a.m.: Check online snow report for the mountain to see if it’s worth calling a family snow day, despite what school is – or is not – doing. Report not updated. Resume attempts to work.

6:55 a.m.: Check snow report again. No dice. Repeat above attempt to work.

6:56 a.m.: Receive email from school regarding breakfast for students. Assume this is a sign that school will not be cancelled. Feel a little sad.

6:59 a.m.: Bedroom door squeaks as first kid emerges and creeps up to the office to confirm school is delayed. Check snow report again. No dice. Back to work.

7:02 a.m.: Repeat above step with second kid to wake up. Both go downstairs to enjoy the no-rush morning.

7:08 a.m.: Look up from keyboard and notice it’s finally light enough to see outside. It’s dumping. Heart is happy. Seriously dumping. Check snow report again. Still not updated. What the heck?!?

7:13 a.m.: Phone buzzes with text that school is cancelled (and house phone rings, and cell phone rings). Hooray! Feel kind of like a kid. Also, happy that now I don’t have to make the call about a family powder day.

7:14 a.m.: Kid number three emerges from her room and finds me. We celebrate the snow day with a happy hug. Check snow report. Still nothing. Doesn’t matter, I bet we’ll ski.

7:35 a.m.: Give up trying to work – for now. Time to make breakfast, and a plan.

8:45 a.m.: Breakfast done. Dishes done. Ski boots on. Skis in car. Kids in car. Head to the mountain.

9:02 a.m.: Pull into ski area, a few minutes late for first chair.

9:14 a.m.: Slide off chair at the top. Goggles down, hood up. Push down the hill, slide through powder, yee-haw as snow poofs up with each turn, watch the kids weave down the trail, laughing all the way. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. 

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 11, 2019 issue of the Littleton Record.

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.

Snow Day

While other people hunkered down today to wait out the storm, our family went skiing. And the skiing was good. It wasn’t two feet of perfect Colorado powder amid a blue-sky backdrop. It was more like a foot or so of New England snow, windswept by bone-chilling gusts that were still blasting away. No matter – everything is relative, including skiing, and who doesn’t love a powder day?

Getting out to enjoy the gifts of Mother Nature is a heck of a lot more fun than lamenting the weather. In the ridiculous craze of over-hyped weather reporting and naming snow storms (Nemo? Really?), snow in February has become a surprising event for some, it seems. But, um, it IS winter in New England.

Perhaps my memory is skewed, but I don’t think we used to get so worked up about the weather. My only memory of the Blizzard of ’78 is of huge piles of snow in our driveway, transformed into snow forts for a big snowball battle. I was only 4 years old then, and my brothers were 7 and 1: too young, all of us, to worry about the implications of closed roads and power outages.

My dad, who worked about a 45-minute car commute away, barely made if off the Mass Pike that February day before it was closed. One of the guys in his carpool leaned out the window, scraping ice off the windshield, the entire drive home. Thankfully, they all made it home safe and sound.

My mother tells me that my memory of the snow fort and snowball fight is accurate, and that our friends, who had kids of similar ages, walked over through the snow-covered roads, which were closed to cars, to join in the fun. Then we all walked over to their place for dinner. “It was really nice, actually,” Mom recalls. “Everyone walked everywhere and actually talked to each other.”

Probably some folks were tucked into warm blankets by the fireplace back in 1978, too. That just wasn’t my family’s style. Still isn’t. Mom drove us over many a treacherous road to reach Franconia, NH, from our central Massachusetts home to ski each winter weekend. When it snowed, we were sent outside to play, just like we were in pretty much any other weather. We were kids; we loved the snow.

So, when I hear people freaking out about “Snowstorm Nemo,” I don’t really get it. I understand public officials urging people to stay off the roads, but do folks really need to be told to stay inside? Have we lost our basic safety common sense to the point where we don’t know if it’s too cold or windy to go out? Certainly it’s not too snowy.

Beyond the paranoia-invoking weather media, I am also vexed by the New Englanders who bemoan the snow. Living in New England and not wanting it to snow in mid-winter is just plain silly. Move south, for crying out loud, and leave the powder for those of us who appreciate it.

As for me, I’ll keep doing my snow dance, hoping for more of the white stuff this season, dreaming of powder days.

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted on her Blog: Writings from a full life.