“I can’t believe it hasn’t snowed much yet.”
“It better be a white Christmas!”
So many of us seem to be having these conversations right now. It is discouraging as we are so used to celebrating the holidays by going outside. Sure we can drive around and see the lights but some of us enjoy putting on our gear and going out and playing every day while the kids are off school.
I know, I know, it is only natural to moan about our unusual lack of snow. It is happening more often with climate change, but that doesn’t make it any easier to take, especially this month. We expect piles of the white stuff by the end of October.
I distinctly remember my first winter in the White River Valley. It snowed by the end of October and stretched until till late spring. I continue to write a lot about my love for winter here, both in my letters home and this column still. The temperature sometimes dipped down to the minus-20s and just when you thought winter was over, a blizzard would hit.
The powder snow up in the high country was wonderful because I loved going up into the flat tops on my cross-country skis. I had been used to crowded trails and fights breaking out between the skiers and the snowmobilers everywhere else.
Here they all were considerate of each other, as there were miles and miles to be explored by both. In addition, most of my new friends rode sleds (as they called them) all winter long and packed their skis in with them.
Over the years, I began to complain about the changing weather more than the old guys sitting on the “Liars Bench” in front of the hardware store. When my children were growing up here, they began to write stories about some of the winter outdoor activities we did as a family. They were merely given as assignments but gave me a glimpse of their fondness for all the time we spent together cutting down the annual Christmas tree, visiting our friend’s ranch and going snowmobiling all day, ice-skating, or watching fireworks from a deck on New Year’s eve.
Both children complained a lot over the years, but eventually wrote about a few Christmas traditions they remembered fondly. Unfortunately, cross-country skiing was too much work and they opted out of going up with us so that they could go with their friends on the ski bus to Glenwood Springs. I hope that all of the students in our schools still get that opportunity.
A home weather video on Facebook the other day showed the result of an unusually dry winter that caused so many problems on I-70 recently. The passenger recorded the cause of of the sudden slowdown, a giant “haboob” hurtling across lanes of traffic. I had been in these type of dust storms in Arizona and New Mexico, but never in Colorado.
The chances for a white Christmas are dimming each day. Oh well, someone will think of a profitable way to look at this. They might create a holiday tradition with some sort with a song to go with it. Let it dust, let it dust, let it dust! Can’t you just picture all the families climbing out of their car to help gather up remnants of that enormous tumbleweed?
By DOLLY VISCARDI – Special to the Herald Times
