Snow Day!!

It's the kind of day I have been waiting for. For 2 years in the "White Mountains" I have wanted a white Christmas-y snow day and today it has arrived. It seems to me good foreshadowing that we are going to get the crazy blizzard winter I was promised when I arrived here two almost-snow-less winters ago. Right now I am sitting in my cabin-condo surrounded by huge pine trees, and combined with the Christmas lights around my window and my pellet stove fire roaring it looks like the perfect winter wonderland outside.
I know most people hate snowy, dark, cold days but they are, along with rain, my favorite kind of days. Call me naive, tell me I didn't grow up in the north (trust me I've heard it all) but I find joy in layering up with mittens and scarves and scrapping the ice off my car as I go to leave for work. I am like a child as I stomp the crunchy snow beneath my feet with glee. It's winter and I love it.
One thing I love about winter is that it makes everything seem so peaceful (unless you are driving in a snow storm- that is anything but peaceful!). Even if the snow is blowing down in torrents, winter covers up everything. It perfectly blankets the world around me. The falling snow seems to whisper new beginnings. The white, the perfect white, covers up all the dirt and memories and makes me feel like everything will be ok. Snow means time with family is coming. It means that happiness is around the corner. It makes it ok for me to pretend, even if just for a morning hour, that the world and its pain does not exist. It makes me believe that Aslan is coming to breathe new life back into the brokenness. It makes me lean into the ones I love as we drink a cup of tea, glad just to be together. Winter is my favorite because it is beautiful, restorative, and leads me to spend cozy times with those I love.
It's fitting then, I suppose, that I am ending up having a winter wedding. New beginnings, the past covered with the pure snow, the trees whispering that joy conquers all. 

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