"Crazy" Christmas

On the day after Christmas, my 4 year old daughter, Abigail, said to my wife and me, “Why did we have such a crazy Christmas?”  “What do you mean by a ‘crazy’ Christmas”, we asked.  “No snow,” came the reply.  We moved here in April of 2007 three months before Abigail was born.  She had, up to this point, known nothing but white Christmases.

When we moved here, my recollection was that my wife asked, “Do you think we will have a white Christmas?”  My wife’s recollection is that she made a statement, not asked a question.  If you knew my track record for disagreeing with my wife, you would not bet with me.  Each time we investigate a disagreement, we find that I am right about 5% of the time and that is after I round up to the nearest 5.  I do make a point of making as much hay out of my 5% as I can.  I tell my wife that since I only have 5%, at best, to work with, I need to fluff it as much as I can.  In any event, my reply was, “Sweetheart, I am quite sure we will have a white Christmas.  We may even have a white Easter.”

So here we were this year in Rochester, NY singing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” and really meaning it, just dreaming and not having it.  Abigail is right.  It is crazy!  There may not be a divine right of kings, but isn’t there a divine right of Rochesterians to a white Christmas?

 Today I was asking my wife if I should start taunting Winter.  I was wondering if I trash-talked this Winter, maybe I could stir us up some snow.  My wife was very much against it, and I have, from hard experience, learned the value of her counsel.   So if Winter comes in here kicking tail and taking names, it wasn’t me.  I didn’t say anything to her.

Coley