I will readily admit it. When it comes to snow I'm a total wimp. I hate it. No... loathe would be a better word.
Snow sounds very good in theory. The thought of a white Christmas seems so magical. Maybe if I could have snow on just Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (snow that didn't kill all my sub-tropical plants in the garden), I'd like it. But once Christmas was done, I'd want someone to come and roll it all up and take it away, giving me back the mild climate I've grown to love here in the San Francisco Bay Area.
If I really want to see snow, I only have to drive about 3 hours and I'll be in the winter wonderland of the high Sierra Nevada mountains where snow bunnies and snowboarders flock to ski slopes throughout the colder half of the year. Sometimes, even our own mountain and hills are capped in lovely white so that when I crest the hill on the road that takes me out of our little niche, I see a majestic white peak dominating the panoramic scene before me.
But I don't want snow anywhere near me or my garden.
I tell people that I did my time.
Years of my childhood were spent in the harsh cold that envelopes the Rocky Mountains. At well above a mile high in elevation (almost 8,500 ft to be exact) snow could come as early as September and as late as June. I walked to and from the school bus stop in it for a half mile every school day as a little girl. I spent several Easter Sundays hunkered down inside as a blizzard raged outside keeping our family home from church. I spent many nights with my family huddled around a fireplace burning kerosene lanterns because the power was out from downed power lines due to heavy snow. As a little girl I read Laura Ingalls' book "Little House in the Big Woods" for the first time and could relate very well. Snow was real. It wasn't magical. It was a harsh reality for 9 months out of the year.
Yes... I did my time in the snow. I am not wistful for the proverbial white Christmas. I'll take the foggy Christmases of the Bay Area any day.
