Snow

I woke up this morning in an honest to goodness wintery landscape.

-ish.

I guess as wintery a landscape as I have seen in recent memory.  White slushy snow, grey skies, and scores of nervous Houstonians wearing new ankle length North Face down jackets, purchased at great expense for THIS day.

It was just earlier this week that I was reminiscing with a colleague about how I have never experienced that famed "white christmas" that Crosby sang to heartily about.  My Christmas traditions consist of morning walks down to the beach and along the breakwater or to the end of the wharf to peer into the vast infinity of the pacific.  Maybe a game of croquet.  A drive up PCH/101.  In short, mostly things that would be hindered by freezing temperatures, snow, and ice.

I find that I really like the concept of the "white christmas", I have just never ventured to experience one for myself.

I am reminded that every Christmas I've experienced until this point, every tradition, every meal and morsel, every moment sitting on the floor of that house, figuring out which color room I will be sleeping in, every breakfast around that iconic breakfast nook, has passed from expectation into memory.

Don't get me wrong, I don't invalidate all of those experiences, even in the slightest.  I am just acknowledging that with the passing of that amazing women, there's not a lot that I hold true (about family, holidays, and traditions) that hasn't changed, or been replaced completely.

But that is the way of life I suppose.  It's up to those of us remaining, and yet to be born, to make the conscious choice whether to continue on with what has been, or to breach into something new, and yet undiscovered.

Either way, it's going to be a very different Christmas.  And that's alright by me.

::I realize that most of this makes absolutely no sense without the back story.  But I think you get the point::