Can the fishes see it's snowing?

I'm fairly certain that I was never a child. I feel more convinced of that when I read A Child's Christmas in Wales. Wonder, magic - they seem foreign to me, rather than nostalgic. I don't regret it - I don't pine for the youth I didn't live - but I do feel the gap in my own experience, as though I lack a great chunk of the vocabulary of human life.

My mother says I sprung from the womb aged 40. That would imply that I'm still growing into my soul. That's an odd thought.

I would sit among festoons and Chinese lanterns and nibble dates and try to make a model man-o'-war, following the Instructions for Little Engineers, and produce what might be mistaken for a sea-going tram car.
- Dylan Thomas, on Christmas Afternoon

I'm collecting favorite Christmas stories, essays, and texts. My list is short so far, but in addition to Wales it includes

• "Xmas and Christmas - A Lost Chapter from Herodotus" by C.S. Lewis. Published in God in the Dock, though I'm not certain of the original source. A classical anthropological expose on the 50-day Exmas Rush.
• "Six to Eight Black Men" by David Sedaris, in Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. A cleaner, more joyous, alternative to the (nonetheless hillarious) Santaland Diaries. Listening to the author's reading of this is one of my own personal holiday traditions.
  

Always open to more suggestions to add to the collection.

Love's Redeeming Work is Done

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Died He once, us all to save, Alleluia!
Where thy victory, O grave? Alleluia!

Soar we now where Christ hath led, Alleluia!
Following our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like Him, like Him we rise, Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!

-from "Christ the Lord is Risen Today," Charles Wesley, 1739

A Holiday Interlude

George Washington was a gentleman,
His birthday is tomorrow.
He filled his country's friends with joy,
His country's foes, with sorrow.
And so my dears, his grateful land
In robes of glory clad him.
George Washington was a gentleman.
I'm glad his parents had him.

from "Washington's Birthday Eve" by Ogden Nash

Observing Snow

For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow-storms and rain-storms and did my duty faithfully.

- Henry David Thoreau, Walden

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The northeast's tardy winter is coming fully into its own today, with the first "real" snowstorm of the season. February 14, eh? This is when the locals are generally looking for winter to start winding down. The skiers resigned themselves to a disappointing season months ago, and everyone else is enjoying the reprieve from heavy-duty shoveling for the year. So far, at least. And even now, though conditions are treacherous, we won't be getting the foot-of-snow-topped-off-by-ice-storm that was forecast.

I didn't grow up around all that much snow. My first experience living in real winter began my freshman year at East Hill University* in Oddtown*, New York. Plenty of snow there, as well as a mountainous one-mile trek between dorms and classes. (You know those stories about walking to school uphill both ways in the snow? Ahem.) Fortunately, I discovered the winter to be far more tolerable than summer ever had been in all those tropical and sub-tropical places where I'd spent my childhood, so for now, I'm stuck on the north country. Well, the semi-north, at least. Those places in the upper midwest where you can't go outside with any skin exposed or turn off your car's engine for months at a time don't really appeal. And to think there's a whole country north of there...

My parents weren't snow-initiated either, until they moved to Rustingham*, New York, while I was in college. Rustingham enjoys copious amounts of lake-effect snow, a largely misunderstood phenomenon which is to the lakeshore regions of the US what rain is to Seattle. Rustingham, however, doesn't get quite as much snow as, say, Buffalo (94 inches per year, average), Rochester, (93 inches, all of which fell last week), or Syracuse (116 inches). Oddtown averages around 70 inches per year, and Selfimportantville, being a seaport, runs only around 40 inches, though out here in the inland suburbs we see rather more.

Of course, some places are totally different. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center:

The greatest snowfall officially reported at the Phoenix, Arizona National
Weather Service Office was one inch. That occurred twice. The first time was January 20, 1933. It happened again four years later on the same date.

Perhaps next year I'll have to write on international snow.

Oh, and by the way, Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. Hope you can actually dig out in time to make your dinner reservations.
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*Place names changed protect my obsession of superficial anonymity, as usual.