Lilac Colored Glasses

Ah, the first snowfall of the year! I love it! Last year the first snow was in November while my parents and brother were visiting but this year it held off until today. And what a great snow!! Perfect, huge fluffy flakes that ended up accumulating to a few inches or so. I took a quick walk to the corner store on my break just to hear the squeaking crunch under my feet and to feel the soft feathery chill on my cheeks.

Three of the children (Peanut, Drama Queen and Spazz) were old enough to be totally amazed by the layer of white that was quickly piling up on our back terrace. They even got an afternoon cookie from us kindly grownups to celebrate their first snowfall. It’s funny that I hate the cold but love snow so much. Somehow, snow seems to take the edge of the bitterness of a cold winter. It turns even the most mundane things into something beautiful and special.

It even has the power to totally diffuse my would-be angry reaction to the total ineptitude with which Belgium handles their 2-3 snowfalls per year. Cause this few inches of snow caused amazing traffic, the cancellation of all inter-city trains and the sidewalk to become a veritable ice skating rink. I got home about 2 hours later than usual. But the most acidic thing I could think of to say to CB about it was that I couldn’t understand why no one ever thought to invest in a bag of rock salt. I was really too busy walking around in a winter wonderland (and trying to stay on my feet and not break my face on the ice) to care much about the delays. It just gave me more time to be happy about the first snow.