And may all your Christmases be white

December 26, 2013

"In the Bleak Midwinter" is one of my favorite Christmas hymns.

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,

earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;

snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

in the bleak midwinter, long ago.

I don't know that "frosty wind made moan" was the world that Jesus of Nazareth was born into, at least not his physical world, but it is without a doubt, the physical world I inhabit.

Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow

Snow is my Christmas reality. And playing in the snow has been the dominant theme of our last week, with more to come.

Perhaps because of my northern European ancestry and the fact that I live in a northern culture, Christmas is as much about snow as it is about Advent and Jesus born in stable.

Snow is my Christmas world. The Christmases of my parents and their parents, of my childhood, my children's childhoods, "I just can't imagine Christmas without snow", Celine commented to me recently.

Neither can I my dear, neither can I.