College football is over. Alabama won another National Championship. Yawn. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New years are just a memory. The deer are safe for another year and still no Bigfoot. Winter has set in.
Short days and long nights. Wind shields need to be scrapped. Cars have to be warmed up. Old man winter at his best. But for all its hardships to both man and beast, winter has a beauty of its own. A sneaky beauty. The beauty of snow.
Unlike the northeast and the midwest snow is treated with reverence here in the south. We just don't get a lot of it. Some years just a dusting other years a couple of "good ones." Schools let out and grocery stores are emptied. Milk and bread are cleared off of the shelves. Don't really know why, but those two things always go first. Sometimes before the first flake ever falls. All it takes is the hope of snow and things start to shut down.
For a snow to be worth even having, three objectives have to be full filled. First, it needs to happen during the week. No need to waste good snow on a weekend. Second, the consistency needs to be the snow ball making kind. And third, but not in any particular order, is there has to be enough to sled on. Four to six inches of good snow ball making snow on a Tuesday is the near perfect snow. Of course, a white Christmas trumps any of the above no matter what day of the week.
Depicting the ideal snow is easy. White Christmas did when the barn door were slid open. A Christmas Story shows the perfect snow looking through the front window at the end of the movie. Big flakes falling through the street light. The movie Snow Day, has it all. Week day snow, snow ball making, and enough to sled on.
If you let him Old Man Winter can get you down. Cold. Dark. Overcast. Not much to cheer about there. But just wait. What starts out as a light dusting and builds to 5 or 6 inches is whats hes known for. Snow.
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