I Remember Snow Days

One of our friends told us yesterday that the school his daughter attends has promised their students true snow days for the first two snow days this year. No virtual learning. Real, old-fashioned snow days with all the hype and fun. He told us he's already promised to take a vacation day on that first one so they can enjoy the winter wonderland festivities together. Sledding and snowmen and snow angels and snowball fights and all the snow things.

Back when I was his daughter's age, all snow days were true snow days, and they were grand.

My parents worked in the school system, so they always got "the call" early (if not the night before). Sometimes I could faintly hear the phone ringing at the other end of the house, and I knew it was the day. Sometimes I slept right through it and awakened to full light streaming in the window, announcing a snow day in progress, and that was just as grand. 

I always got to do special things on snow days. Of course I could suit up and go play in the snow if it wasn't so bitterly cold or windy outside. 

(That's Dad pulling me around the yard on my sled.)

But there were other treats about snow days too. Jammies all day. Puzzles and board games. Hot dog and marshmallow roasts in the fireplace. Hours and hours of reading books and getting lost in the fictional worlds I loved so much. Coloring and playing school - or house. And when I got older, hours on the phone with all my friends, catching up before we got too behind for not seeing one another for an entire day. 

I think I was in upper elementary school when snow days stopped being so grand. We still got them, of course, and they were still beautiful on that day, but they came to mean added days at the end of the year, and I always dreaded those. I savored my summer fun every bit as much as my snow fun and didn't like for it to be delayed. 

Then I got into the grown-up world and learned there aren't snow days - at least most of the time. There was that one day in our second year of marriage when Ryan and I both found ourselves the proud owners of a snow day during a Polar Vortex. 

We suited up and relived our childhood that day, playing outside, eating by the fireplace, and snuggling in under mounds of blankets. It was as charming as I'd remembered, and I thought it was most unfortunate that adults don't get the pleasure of a good, old-fashioned snow day like we used to know.

We are thankful that so far, our winter has been fairly mild and snow has been mostly about pretty and not about treachery. 

I still appreciate those old-fashioned snow days. I hope we're not done with them entirely. I have more snowmen I'd like to make before winter is done. But as I've gotten older, I've grown to love the sheer beauty of winter. (Driving excluded, of course.) I've grown to appreciate trying to find the unique details of the snowflakes if they separate enough to be seen.

I love watching the flakes float down and the fluff build up. 

I have a new appreciation for its blanketing beauty, and today I'm grateful for the samplings we've had this winter. They've been so picturesque!

And for this new generation of little ones who have never known the sheer delight of a proper snow day, I'm so glad some school systems are bringing them back. It's a childhood classic everyone should get to experience - at least in snow-receiving regions!