Toasty Memories

The little blaze dances and leaps while making toes in cute socks toasty.

For me, this is what December evenings look like.

Then the strains of familiar carols should drift from the radio.

"Oh the weather is so frightful,
but the fire is so delightful,
and since we've no place to go
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!"

Of course all my favorites include the images of snow and cold, frosty air because that is where the child in me grew up.  Bundled like little snowmen, my brother and I would trek outside to play for brief intervals--and then tumble back in the door wet, snowy, and cold.  One of my favorite treats was my grandmother's hot chocolate.

"Dashing through the snow
On a one horse open sleigh
Over the fields we go
Laughing all the way"

Though our one horse open sleighs were replaced with snowmobiles.  My grandfather loved to load the grandchildren up and cruise around the farm, but my dad was more fun, as he zipped over the fields!

"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know..."

The ones I knew as a child...I want my children to experience.

I love to play in the snow.

One of the teenage neighbor boys was asking what it was like to go sledding and it never "truly" occurred to me that many kids really don't get to go flying down the steepest hill their brother can find.

There may have been a day when I would have willing traded my ornery brother, but now that it is merely a memory I cling to it.

Perhaps a bit like the snow itself.