Snow Blessings

For what feels like the 6^th or 7^th time in the last two weeks, I am looking out my front door at a wonderland of fresh snow. It’s getting to look significantly less wonderful at this point. I was born and raised in New England, and lived through the infamous Blizzard of ’78, so bouts of snow in January and February are no surprise. Neither are snowdrifts 6 or 8 feet high. But this many significant storms in such a brief period of time are getting old. It’s like eating an entire gallon of ice cream in a single sitting: at first it’s pretty fun, but after a while it just makes you want to throw up.

But if the curses of all this snow are things like the kids missing school, trying to figure out where to put all the snow you’re shoveling, constantly running out of ice melt and washer fluid, scrubbing the trails of tracked-in snow off the kitchen floor every day, and general cabin fever, what are the blessings? I mean, there ARE times when we like snow, right? So how can I put a positive mental spin on all this snow? Here’s a list of the “snow blessings” that I came up with:

•         It looks pretty. Seriously, there’s nothing quite as lovely as looking out your bedroom window as the sun is coming up and seeing a soft, perfect blanket of white covering everything.
•         It sounds pretty. All the ambient noises are muffled, even silenced, in the falling snow. There’s a beautiful serenity in that stillness.
•         It gives me extra time with my kids. And I get creative about it. I do think of myself as a creative mom in general, but I sometimes get lazy. Spending a few snow days thinking up new and different games, concentrating on what my kids would most enjoy, just sitting on the floor with them DOING stuff together, is a wonderful blessing.
•         It makes me thankful for my husband. Especially today, when he’s away and I’m on my own to clear the driveway and the car, it reminds me how much work he does when it snows. It reminds me to be more appreciative of not only that, but of all the quiet, unnoticed things he does around the house: taking out the trash, replacing lightbulbs, hauling boxes up the attic stairs, charging my electric toothbrush, maintaining the pool, and probably a whole list of stuff I don’t even realize that he does. Thank you, sweetheart.
•         It gives you a chance to simply play. Making snow angels. Building snowmen. Going sledding, Having snowball fights. Making sno-cones and fake ice cream. Building a snow fort. Building a snow cave. Jumping into a big pile of soft fluffy snow with both feet. Blazing a trail through virgin snow. Finding footprints of animals and birds and trying to identify them. Catching snowflakes on your tongue.
•         It give you the chance to be neighborly. Taking a break for a few moments to lean on your shovel and catch up with a neighbor whom you rarely see. Shoveling out common sidewalks and fire hydrants. Snowblowing or shoveling out an older or injured neighbor. Sending your kids across the street to play with the neighbors’ kids or inviting them into your yard.
•         It’s cause for a whole list of delicious food and drink. Hot chocolate with whipped cream and/or marshmallows, hot tea in your favorite mug, homemade soups and stews, fresh bread, anything that can be made in a crockpot, chicken pot pie, lasagna, pot roast, shepherd’s pie, all those hearty casseroles your mom used to make for Sunday dinner. They’re comforting for body and soul.

So yeah, you might throw your back out trying to shovel the results of the latest storm on top of the results of the last seventeen storms. And you’ll probably run out of bread and milk and eggs and batteries and ice melt. You might even break a shovel. You’ll definitely break a sweat. But amidst your cursing, try and find a few of the blessings on this list. It won’t make spring come any earlier, but hopefully it’ll being at least a tiny bit of thaw to even the most frozen heart.