fajrdrako | Spending Christmas in the snow...

From Livejournal's Writer's Block: Do you long for snow during the winter holidays? Would you prefer to spend your holidays in the tropics or in a winter wonderland?

Well, I've nothing against the tropics, but I'm also not drawn to the tropics, either. Not int he least. Other people go to Cuba and Florida Jamaica, but I choose Orkney and Durham and Paris for my travels. I'm not fond of heat, and when I travel it's to see places I love (mostly in Europe) and friends and events. Next month will be my first trip ever to the Caribbean. So, by default, it's obvious that my choice would be to spend Christmas in a Winter Wonderland. A few choice memories of Christmas in the past:

Being in England as a student, and spending Christmas at my cousin's place in Somerset. She had two young children who were terrific, and an old thatched cottage, with roses growing on the wall outside. On Christmas afternoon it snowed, and we all went out on skis. Not much snow by Canadian standards, but pretty. I admired the larch trees: they didn't lose their leaves.
When I was three, we had a Christmas without snow. I got a toy truck as a Christmas present, and played with it in the mud in the back yard, in my snowsuit.
It often snows on Christmas Eve, and I remember walking to the Christmas Eve Candlelight service at Trinity Anglican Church on Bank Street, not far from where my parents lived when I was an undergraduate. There were huge beautiful snowflakes that caught the light and drifted as they fell.
At the age of twelve, we spent Christmas with my grandfather in the mountains of Arizona. We saw snow on the Texas desert as the train went through.