WHITE CHRISTMAS

Our local paper has the chances of a white Christmas at 11%, with snowfall on Christmas Day at 9%.

Thanks, local paper. You’re about 10% too optimistic I reckon. I don’t even remember the last white Christmas, and every year the modicum of hope that an already unlikely and unpredictable event will happen on one particular day, is usually snuffed out a like warm snowflake. The Met Office has a predicted air temperature of 12 degrees, overcast and dry. From here, a white Christmas seems once again, a bit of a dream.

I wonder where Bing Crosby grew up. Every year he gets brought out to sing about the white Christmases he ‘used to know’, but how come he even remembers more than one? Where was this magical winter wonderland?

All of that aside, I think I prefer a cold-blue-sky Christmas anyway. You know, where it’s bright and chilly, and the brilliant sun casts long shadows over grass that’s still stiff with ice. Those are the Christmas days I remember. Merry and bright! And where the treetops glisten with December sunlight as you walk home from church, or through the park or wherever.

I’d have had a hard time slotting that into a heartwarming song though, I suppose.