A White Christmas

Christmas is like my neighbor’s ivy. I cut it off on my side of the fence and before I know it, it’s back again. I don’t mean that negatively about the holiday, just about the ivy. And that’s not to say that I think that Christmas is creepy like the neighbor’s ivy either, it just creeps up on me…Christmas, not the ivy. Vines that creep up on me would give me nightmares…just forget that analogy.

Nearly every day in the paper this past week there’s been mention that we might have a white Christmas here in Medford. I’m not sure exactly what qualifies as a “white Christmas”. Does there just have to be snow on the ground at midnight December 25^th? Does it matter how long that snow has been on the ground prior to that time? Is it important how much of the ground is covered by the snow? Is there a certain depth of snow in order to qualify a Christmas as being “white”? Or, does the snow have to fall on Christmas Day? Or does it have to be snowing in the morning? What if it snows at 11:55 pm December 25^th? Isn’t that still a “white Christmas?”

The amazing thing is that I don’t think anyone knows. It’s just one of those holiday concepts put out there by Bing Crosby that everyone thinks is a neat idea. We really latch onto the cold, icy, snowy Christmas. But, if you think of it, most of the world on Christmas is sunny, bright and fairly mild. As I write this, Bethlehem, Israel, on December 25^th, the high temperature is going to be 55 degrees. That’s balmy.

If Santa wore his thick fur suit in the southern hemisphere, where it’s just a few days into summer, he’d quickly sweat off those extra pounds he carries.

I enjoyed the warmer California weather of my Christmas past. It was nice to have a bike by the tree in the morning and actually be able to take it outside and stream up and down the street on it. If you lived in Minnesota and you got a bike for Christmas, you’d have to wait until June to ride it. Either that or ride it up and down the hall of your house, running over your parents’ toes, cat’s tail and over the face of an older sister who happened to be on the couch, watching TV, eating a bowl of Cheerios.

Snow is a great equalizer. It covers all the junk in the neighbor’s yard and my patchy lawn looks just as manicured as everyone else’s. With a few inches of snow on my car no one can see that the paint is faded and flaking like the aftermath of a bad sunburn. It’s difficult to tell new cars from the older, classic styles. It’s sort of like how China used to be, where everyone wore the same black outfits. Everyone was equal. When I’ve got a coat of snow on my car, I’m feeling like I’m drivin’ a new car. Except for the smoke coming from the exhaust and the groans, whines and creaks of the engine coming from beneath that fine layer of white.