According to the radio it’s been over 100 years since it has snowed on Christmas day in Atlanta!
I took a walk today in the wind and blowing snow and thoroughly enjoyed the quiet and beauty. Two years ago we had a heavy snowfall that damaged many of my shrubs, bamboo and ornamentals, so I spent some time relieving those tender branches from the weight of the accumulated snow. It gave me something to do to increase the amount of time I spent outside in the snow!
When I finally did come indoors I thought about my Mom. We didn’t have a mud room or any other place to deposit wet and snowy clothes and boots. Often times they found their way to the dining room near the clanky radiator to dry out. Of course if they were leather this meant that they might be a bit “crispy” the next time you tried to put them on…
The radiator was also covered in wet mittens, scarves and hats from sledding on Becker hill. Many a snowy afternoon was spent at our neighbors house trudging back up the hill after a long and exciting ride down. Coca Cola signs were available to us from the Coke plant across from our house; the Coke toboggans were the most fun because we would load the sled with as many people as possible – seems like sometimes we had about 10 kids on there. The round signs sometimes would spin around as you sailed down the hill. We used to make a game of pushing someone off the sled midway down. I not only got pushed off but then immediately run over by the next sled coming down the hill – not the plan since I was the youngest and my seven sibs were supposed to be watching out for me! I remember feeling a bit dazed, but it never happened again.
My Mom was pretty amazing. She gave us wonderful traditions to live up to in our own families. She was creative and cheerful despite the ever-present struggle of limited funds and her own declining health. We had milk delivered to our house weekly and the caps were covered with red, blue, green, gold and silver tin caps. She took these caps and strung three or four of them with red ribbon to make ornaments for our Christmas tree – some of them still adorn the trees of Bourgeois siblings today, some fifty years later. (On a day like today, cold, snowy, windiy, if the milk was not taken from the back porch in a timely manner, we had any number of broken half gallon glass bottles with milk leaking out into the snow.
Christmas and snow always make me miss my parents and family and always make me grateful for having such wonderful childhood memories.
What we don't see 