Snow Day!

There is nothing like an old-fashioned blizzard to make a house feel cozy (especially when curled up under a down comforter in my sister’s spare room!). We had clear, dry weather on our long drive north, fortunately arriving a day before one of the biggest storms in the last decade or so rolled into town. The wind howled out of the west all night long, incessantly shaking the windows and often waking me up with a sense of anticipation. When you’re safe and warm inside, a blizzard brings excitement at the possibility of being snowed in, having an excuse to sleep late, stay in your pj’s, and bake and relax all day long. This possibility is particularly exciting after having lived in climates without snow for the last seven years!

At 5:30 a.m., the windows were so coated with a crust of wet snow that it was impossible to see outside to gauge the amount that had fallen, but it seemed hopeful that my sister would have a snow day from work. Indeed, she did! Even though we’re adults now, and my sister has a little one of her own to look after, the chance for a snow day brought back fun memories of snow days when we were growing up. Without a doubt, they were much more frequent back then.

We celebrated with café con leche and homemade coffee cake, happily gathered together beyond the snowed-over windows. By afternoon, the snow had stopped blowing, the sun arrived and melted the ice off the windows, the neighbors ventured out to clear the waist-high drifts over their sidewalks, and some of our family managed to come over in their four-wheel-drive with a turkey dinner.

So here’s to snow days, or to anything that helps us spend more time together with our loved ones!