1. Half the guys look like Santa. Whether young, ginger Kris Kringle (you remember the Rankin-Bass special) or full-on white beard ho-ho-ho, Santa is everywhere!
2. Bibbed snow pants. They stay up and keep you warm and dry when shoveling said snow, even though they make you look like a Weeble.
3. Shoveling snow. Best. Workout. Ever.
4. Family snow-shoeing (the hard way through deep snow). Not. Best. Workout. Ever.
5. Snowflakes in all their glory. Puffy tiny ones that look like someone is sprinkling sugar on the landscape. Big clumpy ones that look like ping pong balls bouncing around in a bingo machine.
6. A well-plowed road, literally. A road where the gravel or dirt peeks out from beneath the snow, with plow drifts piled way beyond the edges. Wide enough and clear enough that you can easily drive in or out to make a grocery run.
7. Overcast, snowy days where you are required by law to curl up with a good book next to the fireplace while the world turns to shades of grey around you.
8. Blue-sky clear days where you feel like you've stepped into your own technicolor Munchkinland. Welcome back reds and greens and blues and yellows and browns!
9. Luxuriating in the irony of snuggling under mounds of blankets in front of a roaring fire while eating ice cream.
10. Watching your dog experience snow for the first time -- every time! Especially in her jaunty red coat.
11. Snowhawk on the car.
12. Night skies so clear and crisp that there's nothing between you and the stars but the cloudy exhale of your breath.
13. Watching a deer prance through three feet of snow in the meadow then clear the entire width of the road in one graceful leap. Easy to extrapolate to flying reindeer 🙂
14. Waking up the morning after a snowfall to see the blanket criss-crossed with animal tracks, of the four-(long)-legged variety.
15. The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow, Gave a lustre of midday to objects below. Check!
16. Being surrounded by Christmas Trees - in all directions. Branches groaning under their flocking of snow.
17. Watching said "flocking" tumble down into a 40 foot veil of powder or gigantic clumps when the wind blows or when a bald eagle or falcon skims the tree top.
18. The ka-thunk of a sheet of snow sliding off the roof and startling the dog (and us).
19. Sunlight hitting the snow to ignite a billion sparkles. Moonlight making a glittery fairy land of silver and deep blue.
20. Pretending to be on an olympic bobsled run on the drive in or out.
21. That frisson of recognition when the forrest stand looks straight out of Game of Thrones. Winter is ... here, White-Walkers...hopefully not so much.
22. Finding the perfect comforter, velvety soft on one side, sherpa soft on the other and ohhh so warm.
23. Recalibrating so that 24 and sunny is "balmy"
24. When the sun fully charges your batteries.
25. Being glad it's a "normal" winter without polar vortexes or bomb cyclones (sympathy beams to the rest of the country).
wow, such great fun to read and see your pics!! thanks for reminding me that winter and snow can be so beautiful in idaho!!
Yes this more than anything makes me want to come visit!! Love that you get to experience so much snowy wonder after so many years in sunny SoCal 🙂
Very impressed with your poetic thoughts and phrases! I guess there is indeed beauty in
everything around us if we care to see it. Thanks for sharing!