Let it snow, let it snow

BY LESLIE WESTBROOK
Am I the only person that feels like the holidays just sort of crept up on us early this year? It can’t possibly be true that there is only one week’s worth of shopping days left until Christmas, can it?

Initially, I thought maybe it doesn’t seem like Christmas because I’m gazing out my window, past desert-like yucca spikes and pittasporum, the sun is dancing on the Pacific Ocean with a crisp outline of Santa Cruz Island beyond—not to mention the really beautiful winter sunrises and sunsets of late—and I’m thinking: Where’s the snow?
Sure has been cold lately.
But no snow.
There’s no reason I should wonder where the snow is, since I grew up in Southern California. I cannot remember a Christmas Day or Eve when it snowed (although there probably was one). I’ve spent very little time in the snow. During the few years I did experience a white winter, while I toiled in the publishing world in New York City, I would come home for the holidays and stay longer and longer and longer, just to soak up our California sunshine and avoid the cold, wet snow. Why, suddenly, all this nostalgia for something I didn’t even like?
An octogenarian friend of mine in Philadelphia writes to me about having to shovel it. He doesn’t sound too enthusiastic about that task. And you have to wear layer upon layer of clothing and mittens, and hats and scarves and other things, that get lost in it.
Am I really yearning for snow, or is it something else?
I do like the pristine look of newly fallen snow, and snowflakes on my tongue. The silence of snow is perhaps what I like the best. Yes, walking in the snow in silence. There’s something downright spiritual about it. Did I mention the crunching of snow beneath my feet?
I was drawn to a snow globe at a shop the other day and couldn’t resist picking it up, shaking it and thinking about being inside that winter wonderland.
I must have a fever.
Is there such a thing as snow fever?
I have been down sick with a nasty cold/flu like many people this non-snowy season, which gives me time to send cards, which I never do. I even bought cards with people forming snowballs in the…well, you get it. Usually, I wait to see who writes me and then, after the holiday hubbub dies down, I sit down and write “Happy New Year” replies.
Maybe it’s all the holiday cards and advertisements featuring snow. Have you been elfed yet? I have received no less than four of these before the middle of the month.
Former newspaper columnist Beverley Jackson, Indy columnist Michael Seabaugh and his dogs, fellow DS columnist Karen Lee Stevens, her honey Michael Travolta and cat Miss Bella, and perhaps budding newspaper columnists Nico and Isa Johansson (I suspect their mama did it) all “elfed” me via the internet.*
Guess what they are all doing?
Dancing in the snow.
See, I’m not the only one.
You may not believe this, but as I am writing this, I just heard a song out of the boob tube.
You guessed it.
“Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.”
Kismet.
All right, already. Think I need a snow fix.
Go to www.elfyourself.com if you want to join in the revelry.

Leslie Westbrook's column appears every Monday in the Daily Sound. E-mail her at thisandthat@santabarbarafree.com