The Hap-Happiest Season

It snowed Friday night.

I would like you all to just sit and think about that statement for a moment. In fact, I'll once again iterate:

It snowed Friday night.

Now, this isn't technically the First Snow Of The Season. That happened at work sometime this week. It didn't reach home, however, and melted before I left the hospital. So this is what I am holding to be the first.

I hate, hate, hate snow.

Everyone I know thinks it's magic and that it looks pretty. And...that's true to be honest. I actually enjoyed snow back in the day when it was a rare occasion in Seattle and I was too young to really understand what it meant to have to drive in it. Then I moved to Utah for school and it snowed and I thought it was awesome because I got to see people slip and fall on the ice and I stayed inside writing papers and only went out to play in it.

Then I went on my mission to the North Pole. Or Cleveland. It was hard to tell sometimes. I remember my first winter there: awful. It didn't start snowing until January or so in my area of downtown Cleveland, but once it did it hit hard. How hard you ask? I remember cheering when the temperature reached positive degrees. I remember my friend serving in Sweden writing telling me that it was negative something Celsius and me freaking out about how cold it was and then realizing that negative 30 Fahrenheit was actually colder, and that was the temperature I was walking in. Yes, I said negative 30. Cleveland is lovingly referred to as the "mistake on the lake" due to the high speed winds lake effect.

It was cold.

I actually got frostbite on my mission. My nose and the part of my cheeks under my eyes actually froze to a mild degree. To this day, when I transition from cold to hot my cheeks turn a nice brilliant red. It's fun.

Last year was a first for me when I had to drive to work in our convertible. In the snow. I actually had to call off work once or twice because I just couldn't make it there. That year began an even greater dislike for the icy white, and I am a complete scrooge when it comes to being out in snow at all. I hate being cold, I hate being wet, and the white stuff has the tendency to grant me both blessings at once with the inevitable avalanche off of tree branches that somehow always happens right when I walk beneath them.

Today, the snow is melting. Mostly. But I have an even bigger problem: I'm sitting here on my couch and cold wind is blowing in through my giant closed window behind me.

We're going out to buy some plastic wrap soon to seal this baby closed. I refuse to be in the great white north in my own living room while I watch TV.

Oddly enough, throughout two years in Ohio and coming on to my third year here in Utah, I haven't had a white Christmas since I was a little kid and don't remember.