Snow Day!

When you live in South Carolina and the sky spits and sputters several hours worth of flurries, you get unreasonably excited.

My home school rule upon moving farther South and thus farther away from a guaranteed blanket of snow each winter is this: Upon sighting of the first flake, all school work is rendered inconceivable.  Leave your desk.  Don’t bother to put away your pencil.  Just run toward the snowflakes.  Maybe grab a hat.  Definitely grab a bowl to position in a safe location to collect the downward spiraling miracle and later turn it into the magical treat known as Snow Cream.

That’s Wildwood’s official snow policy.

Luckily for me, the snow didn’t happen until school was pretty much already completed for the day so I was able to mark a full day off the list AND to look generous and awesome when I ran with kids outside to dance in the falling snow.

In Virginia, growing up on a farm, snow days sometimes meant no school and sometimes meant extreme snowball fights with intricately designed snow forts and unevenly divided teams where I was clearly the weak link that none of my brothers wanted on their side.  More memorable than those perks, however, snow days also meant slogging through snow piles to still complete the exact same laborious chores required on sunny days.  Actually – more chores.

Which is maybe why I love a Southern snow day.

I love that people shut down their entire lives and try to hibernate – for the few hours that the snow lasts.

I love that when snow approaches, life sort of stands still to stare in awe at its simple beauty.

And I love that, after feeding our small menagerie of animals who require minimal care, all we have to do on a snow day is nothing.

London baked scones (poppy seed with lemon glaze – that kid’s been feeding us well lately).  I baked gobs of granola.  We served our first round of fish inside our home tonight.  I’m not making this up.  I have never cooked fish.  Not ever.  (You don’t count tuna from a can – right?)  Not even fish sticks.  It was cod – Alaskan, I think.  (Does it actually matter where that cod was caught?)  I don’t know – I “caught” mine at Trader Joe’s.  It was a team effort.  Not the “catching” – the cooking.  I breaded it and Kevin handled the cast iron skillet part.  I whipped up homemade tartar sauce after Kevin mentioned that sounded good with fish. (It was super easy – I was surprised at how simple it was.)  The consensus at the table was two in love with breaded codfish, two found it basically pleasing and three had to be reminded that first comes dinner and second comes dessert.  (Feel free to make a guess as to who were the two in love with the cod fish.)

I know tomorrow the snow might not melt, but it won’t have any new flakes to pile up on top of it either.

I still dream of snow drifts and hunkering down in the house for days to play board games and read novels and drink chai.  (Sounds cool, right?)

As long as I reside in South Carolina, alas, I know my winters won’t actually look like that.

Which is why the Wildwood Snow Policy remains in effect and why I will seize my snowy days whilst I can.