Winter Wonderland by Bea Tifton

 Filling in for the lovely and talented Caroline Clemmons.

Winter is finally upon us in North Texas. We are still going back and forth from mild to cold temperatures, and we have yet to have a hard freeze. We have small dogs in our family, and a couple of the cuties were sporting light Christmas sweaters during the holidays. When it’s cold enough again, I’ll put on some winter ones instead.

Now that our climate is getting warmer, Christmas sweaters for people are usually out of the question. Christmas shirts are the norm now, long sleeved if we’re lucky. And forget white Christmases.

We seldom have snow in North Texas. It’s more usual to have ice once or twice a year. So the much awaited snow days are really ice days. But sometimes, we do have snowy weather. It usually melts within a day. One year when I was a librarian, our students who were native to Mexico were so excited because the forecast said there was a remote chance of snow. The other teachers and I were gently trying to explain that it just didn’t snow much here because we didn’t want them to be disappointed. That night it dumped several inches, the most I ever remember. School had to be cancelled for a week. The kids were in heaven. And the teachers didn’t mind missing a few days, either. That was before schools had to meet remotely even during bad weather days.

When it’s going to ice or snow in North Texas, people panic. They run to the grocery store as though it was the Apocalypse. All milk, bread, and bottled water disappear as people hurry to get to the last remaining groceries in the free world.  We don’t have fleets of snow plows so things pretty much come to a halt.

Because I don’t get to experience it, I love to look at photos of snowy winters. I don’t have to do any winterizing or experience the inconvenience of trying to travel  during extreme weather. Sometimes I think I’d like to live in a part of the country that gets a little cooler in the winter, but I don’t want to live anywhere where I’m required to plug in my car to keep the battery from freezing or anything. Living in Texas, there’s no danger of that.

 

Do you have snowy winters where you live? Leave a comment below.

Photo Credits: Pexels.com
Ricardo Perez-Saravia "A Hairy Dog Wearing a Christmas Costume"
Hunt on Photo Studio "Girl Wearing Winter Clothes Having Fun Playing on Snow Fall"
Jonathan Peterson "Photo of Forest With Snow"