When I was ten years old, Denver got three feet of snow on Christmas Eve. I remember not being able to see much outside that was more than 50 feet or so away from the house, and I remember having a whole lot of fun in the snow the next few days. Never was a Christmas so white.

Three years ago, the last few days of Denver’s winter were marked by about 30″ of snowfall. Businesses closed, kids played, neighbors dug each other out, chili and cocoa were made. But not by me, because I was on vacation in Florida at the time, sweating in 85 degree heat and humidity. Bummer for a guy who loves the snow.

This one I didn’t miss. The storm is of course national news, and it has meant a lot of inconvenience for a lot of people, but for us it was just plain fun. We hunkered down on Wednesday and enjoyed being inside (remember, I work at home, so commuting was not an issue), and today we got up early and spent a few hours shoveling out as a family. The kids proceeded to sled and dig snow caves almost until it was dark. They’re sleeping well right now. I’m about to be.

Kari took pictures, which I’ve uploaded to my Flickr account. (Why am I taking credit for them by putting them in my account, you wonder? Because she told me to. The site she prefers for online photo archiving is more about print-making than photo-sharing, so there you go.)

I know a lot of people were badly put out by this storm, and I bet if I were a retailer I’d be mad, but this really was a good time for us. Life will be mostly back to normal in the morning, but this Christmas will be white indeed. Enjoy the pictures if you’re so inclined.

UPDATE (12/22/06): link to the pictures is fixed now.

UPDATE (12/26/06): I did some clean-up shoveling today to get the patches of ice that had formed in the driveway and to remove a good six inches of snow that had reappeared on the sidewalk. (It always gets re-covered with snow and slush by cars cutting the corner too closely.) There’s still plenty of white on the ground, but the kids’ tunnel had collapsed, and overall the otherworldly fun of last Thursday had quite left the yard and neighborhood. It was sad. Last week the blizzard was all fun and magic, but what about next time? Storms like this don’t happen every year. The next time it snows like this, will my kids even want to play in it? I mean, the nest starts to empty out in six years.

Try shoveling that into the street.

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• Posted by Tim on Friday, December 22, 2006 at 12:09:08 am PST
• Category: Miscellany
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