Is it REALLY ’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’ (Alfred Tennyson, as whispered by Google)

It’s been many years since I FELT Christmas. ‘That’s adulthood for ya’, I hear you say.

I suppose it is. BUT…

For many years, I thought that was it. But over the last few years, I started realising that it is far from the only – and far from the deciding – factor. Isn’t it strange how we live in a world of black and white, good and bad, split-second decisions, when, in reality, it might take years and years of observation, or (self) searching, of eliminating the ‘that’s not its’ before we can even begin to understand something, both about the world and about ourselves? Especially about ourselves.

Snow.

Snow is the missing element. The absence of which has stolen the Christmas magic from me.

I know I am in the minority who would take the inconvenience of snow any day over the less disruptive greys that lack the magic which snow brings. But I cannot get down with that. It saddens me that we can only enter the magical state of ‘here and now’ when external circumstances force us to. And even then, on those rare – and becoming rarer and rarer – occasions that nature blesses (for want of a better word) with her magic, we often feel inconvenienced and annoyed rather than grateful for the opportunity to slow down.

No amount or monetary value of Christmas gifts, no elaborate Christmas day dinner, nor ‘winter sun’ break does it for me. Nothing compares to getting out of my bed on a Christmas morning, opening the curtains and suddenly finding myself – and the room – illuminated by the light that only the sun or the clear winter skies can create by reflecting a great expanse of snow. Nothing compares to ditching the sofa and the five planned films over hurriedly pulling your shoes over your pyjama bottoms and running out – as soon as you can – onto the freshly fallen snow and hearing that one-of-a-kind crunch under your feet that vibrates right up your body when you finally complete the step by moving your entire body weight on that foot. Nothing compares to rolling the balls for the snowman and then having to ask for help to place one on top of another because you wanted to build a BIGGEST SNOWMAN EVER. Nothing compares to the rosy on your cheeks that this exertion colours them in. Nothing compares to the most beautiful images that frost carved out on the windows. Nothing compares to sliding downhill on the compressed snow with your bum seated on the carrier bag. Nothing compares to the elated chest-expanding PUREST joy when you watch kids or dogs having the absolute time of their life in the snow, without a care in the world, without feeling inconvenienced.

Nothing compares to that stillness in the air that often accompanies snow.

Nothing compares to that magic.

I feel a profound sense of loss and grief when I think about never seeing snow again, never hearing it crunch as I walk, never again feeling that stillness that snow often brings with it. For the last 6-7 years, I have been chasing snow. Not in the skiing resorts but in the places where I always knew it to be. And I never quite managed to catch up with it. And as every year goes by without me having touched snow, it feels incomplete. It feels like the natural cycle is broken. The spring rebirth – the first shoots, the first buds – is less exciting, less life-affirming. In fact, some plants NEED the frost to germinate and return strong when the soil thaws (source: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2021/03/plant-life-cycle-seeds-shoots-roots/). Like the beautiful and wild yellow rattle flower. Even the cherry seeds (and who doesn’t like their cherry on the cake?) are said to require a process called ‘cold stratification’ because, without it, they may fail to germinate (source: https://sowrightseeds.com/blogs/planters-library/maximize-seed-germination-rates-with-cold-stratification#:~:text=Without%20cold%20stratification%2C%20some%20seeds,start%20on%20the%20growth%20process!).

I feel profound sadness that the generations being born today may NEVER see snow. It will only be yet another ‘fairy tale’ told by grandparents. Only a picture on a Christmas card. There will be no felt – with all one’s senses – connection to that picture. To that magic. O

Of course, I am aware that some parts of the world do not get snow; that natives of those lands never (or in many, many generations) experienced snow. But that’s a little different. It reminds me of the old philosophical pondering of, ‘’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’ (Alfred Tennyson). I am a long-time advocate of that approach to life. But when it comes to snow, I become wobbly in my advocacy. I sometimes wish never to have known snow so as not to feel this desperate, profound sense of loss.

When I was a kid, snow was everywhere. I’d walk to school at minus 25°C with 1.5-metre walls of snow on both sides of me that were compacted by those digging the paths open and throwing the snow to either side of that path. After school, my classmates and I would spend hours sliding down the tiniest hills we could find using carrier bags or our exercise books that wore poly covers.

And when the spring came, all that snow turned into slush that no waterproof footwear could counter; it was just a part of it. You didn’t feel inconvenienced because it’s a part of a package. The possibility of it being different did not enter our realities.

A bit like a family of five fighting over the one toilet in the house in the morning after Christmas dinner. Just an integral part of it. Inconvenient, uncomfortable, but not something that would make people think twice about having a Christmas dinner.