By It isn’t really winter here in Northern California, because it is, after all, California. It is, however, colder here now than it was a few months ago. Cold enough that my early morning writing is being done with my heavy bathrobe on over my pajamas.
I grew up where winters are a little more dramatic, where blizzards could mean days off of school, where I learned to ice skate, and ice fish, on the pond that emptied into Lake Ontario.
I have a lot of fond memories of winter in Upstate New York as a child. I loved the winter then. Sledding and skating and snow ball fights. It would take you longer to get dressed to go out in it than you’d actually spend outside in the snow because it was so cold! As I got older there was the fun addition of snow mobiles.
I left NY when I was 18, and I’ve been back to visit a time or two, but a blizzard that nearly kept us from getting home kind of soured my taste for it. And, as I get older, the idea of all of that cold, wet snow and all of the work just to get around in it, makes me think that I’d rather stay here, where the snow doesn’t bury us to the second floor window and the cold rarely nips low enough to freeze.
It took some time to get used to the holidays without snow, but now that I have, I like not having to worry about driving on sheets of ice to get to see my family. As we head into the holiday season, that’s an important consideration.
Still, I’d take a bit of that snow about now if it would help combat the fires here in California.
Natalie J Case 