This year Kentucky had a white Christmas for the first time since I was in middle school. Something about snow endows Christmas with a legitimacy that is completely irrational as Christ’ birth almost certainly came with no snow in sight.  Maybe I have been indoctrinated by Hallmark movies, old holiday ballads, or greeting cards that show stone cottages buried under white blankets with nothing but candles in the windows and a thin curl of smoke giving evidence to the Christmas happening inside.  Whatever the case, I have bought in to the idea that true Christmases are white.

I think the real reason we like snowy Christmases is because the snow traps us, extracts us from our busy lives and forces us to snuggle inside with the ones we love, the ones we have spent months shopping for, miles traveling to, and then within hours are ready to escape. But the snow forces us to stop and stay awhile. It captures the spirit of Christmas and holds us still till we pay attention. And so we dream of white Christmases.

Today my family took family photos in the snowstorm.  Here is my white Christmas. We are considering making the final picture the album cover for when we release our Christmas CD, which will be carols Stone family style, i.e. sung to the tune of “House of the Rising Sun” or the Gilligans Island theme. Another key element of the family photo session was my mom and I trying to get our boots in as many photos as possible.