Dreaming of a white Christmas ...

We had snow on Christmas morning in the Dallas area ... according to the news the last time this happened was more than 80 years ago. Snow in North Texas usually only sticks around for a few hours and, true to form, by the end of Christmas day most of it was gone.

I remember several snowy Christmas mornings in Northwest Arkansas when I was a child. One year in particular stands out in my mind. We got snowed in on my grandparents farm. We'd spend hours in the living room, huddled around the wood burning stove, playing checkers with Granddad. Going outside for chores was always an adventure for me. We'd go along for the ride when Grandad hooked up the trailer to the tractor to go feed the cattle and break the ice on the pond. Fun for my sister and me ... not so fun for the grownups.

I remember walking around in the snow, following rabbit tracks to see where they came from and where they were going ... listening to the silence or the crunching as I walked on the snow. I remember watching the snowflakes melt on the lens of my glasses ... and how the lens would fog up when I went back in the house. We'd go out and play in the snow until we were too cold, then we'd got in the house and let all the snow melt as we hovered over the wood burning stove. Grandma always seemed to bake bread and cinnamon rolls on the coldest days ... and the smell filled the house.

The year I remember the most, we walked about half a mile from the house, through a couple of gates, to a wonderful hill. My grandparents had the sled my Mother had used as a child ... it was a bit hard to steer but the runners worked great. The only problem with the hill was a small creek at the bottom ... and if you hit it wrong you broke through the ice. The creek was really only a trickle of water, so you didn't get TOO wet ... just enough to make sure you were good and cold by the time you finished.

Not many hills here in Duncanville ... and no sled to boot! When we lived in Cedar Hill the kids would slide on cardboard or in recycle bins, but they don't steer as well as a sled does.