Winter's Entrance

It snowed last night, finally. Not much, its only about a centimetre, but with a week till Christmas it looks nice. Hopefully it will stick around. I've been listening to my friends in Calgary go on about their 3 feet of snow and incredible cold - 40 below. A centimetre is really nothing - just dust. But here in Windsor where winter is normally an afterthought to the Canadian weather patterns, it's enough to make people drive like idiots and pull out the snowblowers. We're just not used to that kind of winter here. We'll get our pounding, but not until January or February.

In the meantime, Christmas is coming, We're all up this morning waiting on Kim's dad visiting - he normally comes down from London about a week before Christmas to take care of the kids and takes off again. He lives two hours away in London, so we don't see him as much as we'd like.

But he's coming, and that's the important thing. His visit starts our meandering for the season. Old friends we haven't seen in a long while, good friends we see all the time, it's even time to say a polite Merry Christmas to someone walking down the

street you don't know at all. We've been receiving Christmas cards too, and ours have been sent. The tree is up and decorated, the kids are off school for the holiday, and we've started our shopping - just started mind you. Still lots to do. I can't wait till the turkey is on the table. Lately Kim has been looking for all the old classic Christmas shows to play over and over for the kids - My personal favourite - Merry Christmas Charlie Brown, has already played a half dozen times now.

Christmas carols play in the background. Real ones, not songs based on getting wild African livestock, or people stuck in chimneys. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Vienna Boys Choir are awesome - Their music gives you goose bumps. I can't think of any other recordings that really bring home the message. Hippos just don't do it for me. Given that, I'm sitting here over my first coffee, in my housecoat, listening to Chuck Mangeone. Typical Saturday morning fare. My daughter just came down and asked if she could go play in the snow. I laughed when I glanced outside to see what it's actually doing out there - Maybe a centimetre and a half now, not much playing, but that's what we have, so she will make the best of it. To Kiki and Dave - when you post about shoveling your 3 feet of snow, remember to try to be a kid again, and make the best of it. Remember snow forts and snowball fights, remember building snow men and making snow angels.

My daughter won't have that here, and by Christmas it will probably be gone, so we'll just have to make the best of what we have, and say to all - Merry Christmas.

Cheers.