Let It Snow

As we are moving into fall and winter, I find myself thinking about the winters we spent at grandma's house as kids.  It was truly a winter wonderland!  I always thought grandma's house had to be the closest to the North Pole and Santa, because the snow was always deeper and more fun to play in at grandma's house than anywhere else.  We always wanted to get snowed-in at grandma's house so we could miss school and play outside.

It would get so cold at grandma's house, the water that ran off the roof would freeze and form long shards of ice that I have seen go all the way to meet the snow!  Can you just imagine that?  It was like nothing we kids had ever seen before.  And the snow fall would pile up all the way over the porch.  We couldn't even see where the steps were.  Grand-daddy always got out early to go to work, rain or shine, or snow, and he shoveled off the porch and walk so we could get out.  

We had breakfast and then bundled up and was ready to go.  Our first order was a giant snowman!  We had the best ever at grandma's house!  She provided the carrot and we went to the coal house and got pieces of coal for the eyes and mouth and buttons.  One of us kids would always gladly volunteer our scarf,  and we would use grand-daddy's old straw hat for our snowman's head.  Grandma didn't miss her broom until about 10 o'clock, and we were in trouble!  Our snowman was minus a broom for the rest of the day!

Next we traveled through the backyard, dragging our feet to make a path, and made our way back to the creek bank.  Indian Creek would be frozen solid.  We could skate and slide and slip around on it and not fall through.  It really isn't that deep, but we thought we were in real danger!  After falls and bumps, we moved on to more fun.

We offered to clean off the back walk and steps, and grandma was glad to let us do that.  We used our feet to move the snow, no snow shovel for us!  We walked around, dragging our feet, until we had paths made almost everywhere you would want to go outside at grandma's house.  By this time we were frozen and our moms called us in.

We had one of grandma's wonderful lunches and spent the afternoon in the house, by the old coal stove keeping warm, and the snow was still coming down.  After supper, when grand-daddy was home from the mines, we got to go out on the porch again, and burn our sparklers!  Oh how we loved those sparklers!  Grand-daddy and our daddy's would light them while we held them tight, and we would walk to the edge of the porch and stick them up in the snow while they were still flickering!  It was great!  We thought we were in great danger of being burned up, but our folks didn't seem to worried about us, and they were having fun too, so we didn't worry about it.   Half frozen again, we were in for the night.

The next morning the snow was still falling, and the remains of our burned-out sparklers were sticking out of the snow, black and burned out, and our snowman was covered with new-fallen snow.  They were sad looking, but we knew there would be new ones to take their place that evening.

My son Lee has had many years of fun in the snow at grandma's house.  He was ten years old when we moved here, so he had many years of fun in the snow with his friends and cousins.  Now, our grandchildren play in the snow and build great snowmen and make paths in the snow with their feet, just like we did many years ago.  Time goes on, but things in many ways remain the same.  

I am so blessed to be able to live in grandma's house and have my family relieve the fun times I had here as a child.  As winter approaches, I look out the windows and think with a thrill, "Let It Snow."