After visiting the property where we intended to build our new home and noticing the sloping hill at the back of the property, the landscape designer said, casually, “Looks like you have a sledding hill right there.”
I thought he was joking. I had looked at that steep slope and figured he’d design an expensive retaining wall with terraced gardens. There wouldn’t be grandchildren for many more years, yet as I watched him start labeling his sketches, I started to understand his vision. Somehow, the idea of a sledding hill felt like exactly what I wanted, even though logic told me that leaving that much space in the landscape design for a feature that could only be used a few days out of the year made no sense. It was the vision of the possibilities that I loved.
Fifteen years later, all of the elements combined. We got a monster snowstorm right before Christmas, which meant that for the first time, there was a pile of fresh snow in the yard at exactly the moment when the grandkids arrived to visit. For the next two or three days, the backyard was put to consistent use. With plenty of snow, mild temperatures, and hot chocolate mix ready and waiting, the sledding hill I had dreamed of all those years ago finally became a reality!
Backyard Sledding:
Over the next couple of days, I captured some of the memories with my smartphone:
The perfect snow day, if you happen to live in an area where it snows, is uncommon. The perfect snow day requires a combination of elements so rare that it only happens once or twice in a year — maybe once or twice in a decade.
The Perfect Snow Day
When I was a child, a snow day meant that during the night, enough snow had fallen that when some official from the school district stepped outside and plunged a ruler into the fresh-fallen snow, it would be deep enough to warrant canceling school for the day. The amount was never quite clear to us kids. Some said it was nine inches of new snow. Others said there had to be at least one foot. The snow had to be deep enough and fall fast enough that the school busses couldn’t get through it safely. It had to be deep enough that closing school was the safe and logical thing to do.
We didn’t have waterproof Thinsulate boots that reached our knees in those days. It was more likely that we had a pair of rubber galoshes stuffed with bread sacks to help keep our socks dry. The bread sacks helped, but not much.
The color of the sky when the clouds clear after a snowstorm is something that always delights me.
What Do You Do on the Perfect Snow Day?
I have fond memories of snow days during my childhood. I have no memories of school being canceled, but I’m sure it happened. Instead, a perfect snow day, for me, is one of those days when the snow has fallen fast and deep overnight so that the landscape is completely transformed and travel is so disrupted that a family really can’t do anything except stay home to play.
The snow changes everything about going outdoors. Traffic is limited, sounds are muffled, and at night, the glow from city lights makes the dark sky glow. With luck, the sky will clear in the morning just enough that there are patches of bright blue laced with lingering clouds to contrast with the white snow. Depending on the type of snow that has fallen, you’ll either have a day of perfect powder skiing, or the perfect snowman-building day. There’s nothing quite as fun as being the first person to make tracks through fresh-fallen snow.
Setting Aside The Routine – Snow Day Gifts
There are not many days in life that we get to have a perfect day. I happened to get one of them this winter. All of the elements combined in just the right combinations: weather, time, light, and family.
As the last of the grandkids trooped back into the house to shed their coats and boots and warm up, the sun dipped just low enough to turn the clouds a gorgeous shade of pink against a sky that was the perfect color of blue. The color of the sky reflected against the snow, turning the entire landscape into a beautiful palette of whites, blues and pinks. I stayed outside all by myself for a few minutes to try to capture the beauty of it so I could store the memory forever.
It was the kind of day a Grandma can only dream of and hope for.
