White-Out Christmas

My first Christmas here it snowed puppies and kittens. Now, I’m a Philly boy born and raised, so a little snow never bothers me. I grew up around snow plows and getting snowed in (on occasion), so I thought I was prepared for a true, honest-to-goodness upstate New York winter. I was not. And Christmas was the perfect time to discover that for the first time.

The blizzard of 2002 started rather inauspiciously, with a few snow flurries on Christmas Eve, but by the time we rolled out of bed on the special morning and shuffled to the large picture window in our fuzzy robes and slippers our mouths were agape at the winter wonderland that awaited us. And we both thought at the same time, “shovels.” Then the shifts began, the great Christmas dig-out.

She had the first shift, bundling up against the cold, grabbing the nearest shovel and getting to work while I made hot chocolate for both of us in our tiny kitchen. I couldn’t help thinking about the insane juxtaposition of spending Christmas in Tennessee in 2001 when it was a balmy 50 degrees with nary a snowflake in the sky. What a difference a year (and a couple thousand miles) makes.

Then it was my turn, and I took the same shovel she used, feeling a kinship with her as I grabbed its handle. Either that or it was just damn cold. As I headed out into the abyss that was our yard, I knew I would be out there for a while. And it kept snowing the whole time. That was the craziest part of it. We were just trying to keep status quo in the midst of so much of the white, fluffy stuff.

It was my job to dig out the cars. Snow had come up almost to the windows while the storm had raged on Christmas Eve, and the position of our driveway at the time was down near the road. I had to shovel through what seemed like miles of yard just to get to the vehicles, and my arms were exhausted from the effort. Then it took a Herculean effort to shovel around the car wheels, creating an island of car in the sea of snow. Then I dug out the second one.

She sustained me as I would periodically look up and see her face framed in the picture window, smiling out at me through the haze of white. After my labors I came in for a small respite with cookies and more hot chocolate, and we sat side by side on the couch watching Friends and laughing in all the appropriate spots. Two hours later we were back in the window looking out at the snow that was still falling, and at our cars, which were sinking at an alarming rate, being swallowed back down by the huge drifts of snow sliding down to fill in the holes we had painstakingly created.

This time we both waded out into the deep snow, armed with a shovel apiece, she with the large one and me with the smaller, intent on conquering the elements as a united front instead of as a tag team. We dug deep into the snow as we peeled layer after layer off and created mounds that grew larger as we reached level ground. But the snow kept falling down, mocking us and our efforts, until the neighbor came out with his plow and offered to clear off our driveway for us. That was a godsend because he was done in a matter of minutes, a task that had taken us two hours and we still hadn’t placed a significant dent in it.

That white-out Christmas was my welcome to upstate New York, and to the glorious nature of a new relationship that continued to blossom in spite of (and maybe also because of) the flakes that kept falling well into that Christmas night. Contentment in white. We went to bed with warm hearts and anticipation for whatever else might come ahead.

Sam