First December Snowfall

 

It is a Sunday morning and the first snow of December has fallen, blanketing the world in white. Thin branches of trees are bent with the weight and sounds are muffled in the early morning surprise. The first snow changes the world into a familiar but changed landscape like that of dreams. The perfection of a fresh snowfall awakens the desire to be the first to set footprints and blaze the trail that others will follow - and yet somehow wish that the unbroken beauty could remain.

Children will excitedly wiggle into snowsuits and boots to drag plastic toboggans to the parks hills. The first snowfall always seems to take us by surprised and to cobble together enough warm clothing, kids end up looking like they have gone shopping at the bottom of a school lost and found box.

There will be tumbles and spills, and laughter and shouts of triumph. Abandoned hats will lay discarded at the bottom of the slopes like fallen birds; lost mittens like leaves - and perhaps some of these items will find their way into the lost and found. The kids will head home tired, the smell of wet synthetic wool and the rasping sound of nylon against nylon, and melting puddles of snow at the door announcing their return. 

This is only the first snow of December and is not expected to last, so the timing has been perfect. No child wants to waste the first magical snowfall on a weekday. This first snow is for them, and for those of us who remember. 

Early December

 Angel,

We are into the beginning of December and the weather has been unusually warm until just last couple of days. Autumn held on and refused to release her hold and for some reason I find this unsettling. We’ve not even had a real snow yet. Today, though the sun is bright, it slants low and thin and finally there is a genuine chill in the air. It is the kind of early winter day when the air feels clean and fresh, and that maybe Christmas is not so far off after all.

It is a day where putting up Christmas lights means suffering a cold breeze on a freezing ladder. It is the first day that I have needed gloves. But it is the first day where putting up the lights seemed to make any sense. It has been difficult to get into the feeling of the season but the chore of decorating in the cold seems to have thawed my heart to it. I even sing some seasonal tunes to myself while I work and this lifts my spirits further.

The winter will be cold and dark enough as the northern hemisphere tilts further from the warmth and light of the sun. Our days will become shorter and our nights longer for a few weeks yet. It will not be until after the winter solstice when the earth starts to swing around the sun and the north starts to drift towards facing the sun again.

Until then, we find small ways to comfort ourselves and each other and remember that the failing of the light is only temporary. We are preparing for the celebration of the return of the light and warmth that we know will come. We are preparing for the welcoming of a new year by placing our own little lights on trees and our homes. We are preparing for the celebration of life while in the deepest of darkness by holding out a little light to keep the darkness bay.

With lights and songs we will hold ourselves and each other through the darkness and finally back to the ease of spring. That is the promise of the season.

Just me.