Everyone loves to make fun of a southerner in a snowstorm, myself included. Last night as I drove 35 mph on perfectly clear roads behind some anxious little person, kind thoughts were not first and foremost in my head, to be honest. And of course, there are memes galore about the inevitable bread and milk wipe out, and while nobody seems to understand why people buy those items, yet with each impending snow cloud, whoosh, the shelves are empty. Actually, on that note, I legitimately needed milk right before our last snowstorm because I wanted to bake granola and having fresh granola and not eating it is a crime. So I slunk into the grocery store, trying to act nonchalant as I stretched to the back of the shelf for a lone milk jug there. But alas, I was waylaid by a stranger who wanted to know just what everyone needs bread and milk for. I tried to defend myself, tried to say I was just as confused by the phenomenon as he and that I legitimately needed milk, but I’m pretty sure he thought I was just making excuses.

So, we all know southerners are bad in snow. But what nobody talks about much is how great we actually are in the snow. A few flakes fall, and the world shuts down and it suddenly becomes a festive holiday. Schools close and kids build muddy little snowmen in their front yards out of whatever they can scrape together. Businesses close too, and families spend time together eating popcorn and reading books. Church gets cancelled, so those with trucks gather the crowds and we eat Hot Pot or pancakes together and frolic outdoors. And boy, do we know how to have fun in it. We don’t need feet of the fluffy white stuff to do so; we can happily go sledding on old pieces of tin over a few inches of snow, or as some people did with our last storm, go snowboarding off a tipped-up trailer. Slippery roads turn into our personal sliding tracks, and being grownup is no reason to not make snow angels out of any fresh bank we see.

There are the inevitable whiners who moan about this awful white stuff, but the rest of us close our ears to them and delight in the rare days in which winter actually looks like winter. Snow storms are an impromptu holiday, a merry celebration made jollier by their scarcity. So next time a Yankee looks down their nose at you and your terrible winter driving and the “panic” over a few flakes, just smile and remember that they have to trudge to work in the stuff while you get to stay home and have fun, so who is the real winner here?

When we saw that the latest storm wasn’t going to fizzle out as many snow warnings do, Grace came over to be snowed in with us, and it was the perfectest weekend. We sat up late by the glowing tree, reading and sipping countless cups of tea. In the morning we bundled up and walked the short distance to our friends’ house for pancakes and bacon and baby snuggles, stopping on the way back to admire the town’s transformation in white, and to make the mandatory snow angel.

We had spicy curry and popcorn and so many hot drinks, I finished four books, and we took another walk at night to admire the webbed designs the ice made on the tree branches.  It was the most relaxing weekend I’ve had in many months, and I can’t imagine a better way to spend one.

(Lyn may have been singing off-key here, hence the pained expression.)

If you are a jaded winterer, I invite you to come south for a snowstorm, and we’d love to help you remember the magic of snow.

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