Snow

I'm pale. And years under the white hot Florida sun have given me no more pigmentation than if I were living in a suburb in Siberia. All I'm left with here is an admiration for conifers and the chittering of birds 365 days a year because it is always winter somewhere and Florida's perpetual summer heat keeps it festive for our feathered friends (and most Northerners) all year round.
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For this holiday Report, I give to you what I miss most about the holiday season. Snow.
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It's taken me 9 years of mental training and many many many trips to Neiman Marcus to feel like I can truly say "it's Christmas" when living in Florida in December. It's the month to celebrate but yet, everthing is green. No leaves falling, no desire to partake of cider or wassail (whatever the hell that is), no ability to bundle up so tight your long john's affix themselves in your butt crack. Hell, I don't even own a pair of long johns anymore! Dear God, if I could only once more feel the bite of snow. If I could enjoy again the perilous risk of losing my eyesight from staring mindlessly into the bleach white wonderland that lay before me.
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Why do I cry out for what most who move to Florida decry? How simple the joys:
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1) The way your breath would hang out in front of your visibly. While waiting for the school bus it was fashionable to pretend that you clutched between your fingers a naughty cigarette. Watch! How effortlessly we puffed on our fingertips, emitting a cloud of non-toxic smoke. I now of course detest smokers. Not hatin' the playa, I be hatin' the game.
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2) Snow Forts. Brian Hays and I could make the most bad ass snow fort you ever got stuck in. Just below our houses was an old rock quarry or ditch, I can't quite remember what the hell that death trap was, but anyway every winter we would wade through the snow once it was nice and crunchy (and about up to our knees) and start work on our masterpiece. This thing was not your run of the mill foxhole. Noooo, it had multiple levels, a look-out and best of all, slides! Think the ice palace from Die Another Day minus the rooms, stairs, doors, lobby, secret agents, chandelier ... okay, think something out of The Goonies but on a smaller scale and made of snow. Slowly but surely our hideaway would melt until you could barely make out where the entrance was and if you tried going down the slide you'd catch yourself on the protruding roots reaching up through the icy slick. Up until that day however, kids from all over the neighborhood would come to play in our snow fort. I can't tell you how many times the Wompa scene from Empire Strikes Back was reenacted there.
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3) Eating Snow. Oh God, I loved eating snow!! Snow was everywhere and it was free! And you could eat tons of it and never get full! Icicles were especially tasty as long as you didn't jab your gums with them and if you dipped them in some freshly fallen snow, it was just like having a really boring Lik-m-Aid stick. Yes, I know that eating snow is bad for you blah blah blah, whatever. But you know, it was the Eighties and I hadn't seen the Nova special on the Ozone layer or heard about radioactive waste yadda. I just knew enough to stay away from the yellow shit and to not eat anything near the dog house. I was a pig let me tell 'ya, I would sometimes lie face down in the snow and just move my tongue around and gnash my teeth until I made it through to grass. Trees weren't safe either (mainly because they were at face height). If the Douglas Fir had snow caps on it, I made like a giraffe and sucked their limbs clean. It was shameful enough to make that pretentious sissy Thomas Dyson and his "100 x the force of gravity" vacuum shriek and bow in reverence. Ironically, it was my friends that kept telling me that eating snow was bad for me who all developed food allergies in later years. Go figure. Given the state of things today and the fact that I now have seen the Nova special on the Ozone layer, plus a particularly nasty 60 Minutes special on germs, I'd much rather reminisce about it than take partake of another helping. Although, snow cones occasionally make me hot.