Winter wishes and wishful thinking

December 1st and It looks like snow today. Low hanging gray clouds cover the sky and the wind is whistling around the eves of the house. The temperature dropped overnight and this morning brought 60 degree air to Florida. Okay, the snow is just wishful thinking. But, if I close my eyes, I can remember my first snowy Christmas in Pennsylvania.

That wasn't so long ago. December 1991, I sat in my cozy living room watching the line of huge blue spruce across the road gathering huge flakes of snow. Within a few hours, there was the miracle of a winter wonderland before my eyes. I was a child again. We were in Indiana, PA which bills itself as the "Christmas Tree Capital of the World" (also the boyhood home of Jimmy Stewart) so we had to have a live tree. We went to the Christmas Tree farm just over the hill and chose the perfect tree. The house smelled wonderful when it was erected in the living room and it looked beautiful covered in the ornaments with a star at the top. But, I preferred to look at the real trees outside covered in snow.

Being Florida natives, we arrived without boots, coats, hats, gloves or even socks and had to make an emergency run to the Goodwill store to outfit ourselves for the winter ahead. That was exciting too. Boots! I love boots. As a child I wore cowboy boots and mother would pry them off my feet at bedtime despite my protests.

I do need a winter wonderland fix!