Snow in the South
There’s something about snow in the South.
We don’t know how to process it when it comes.
It’s this magical glory falling onto us. This fluffy white magic that graces us every few years, knowing that we have been waiting on it.
You see Southerners watch TV. We watch the christmas movies and commercials where someone runs down their swirly stairs in their colonial style homes to peer out the window to a snowy wonderland and a brand new car with a pretty red bow.
Or what about Hallmark movies? Christmas Hallmark movies do not exist without a crisp snowy night.
But in the south… a white christmas? More like a damp chilly, sometimes in the 30s sometimes in the 80s weather?
I actually have memories of Christmas day going for a run in shorts.
But when it snows…
Oh when it snows. Those few and far between years, we savor it. We buy out the bread and milk because THATS WHAT YOU DO.
Not because you need it, but because it’s what you do. You understand?
We buy out the space heaters and we get all the ingredients for that crock pot soup we have been waiting to make.
We pick out the movies we will watch and know that first thing when we wake up to it we will play for a few hours before coming in and thawing out with said soup.
We will blow up instagram and facebook with what we are doing saying phrases like “snow much fun”, making our neighbors of the north laugh at us.
We pile on multiples jackets because a southerners jacket is for 40% style and 60% warmth (the ones that aren’t farmers at least). So when it snows we really don’t know what to do. So we wear all of them.
Because in the south we seem stupid for not being able to function, but when it snows every couple of years, there’s no need to have equipment that clears roads. So we let them ice over and freeze us in for a day or so.
We savor snow and remember what we did on those days.
Let me know if you remember these? More than likely if you’re from the state of Alabama
“The Blizzard of 93′ “
“All the times we got out of school and it never snowed 1998-2010”
“The President’s Day snow of 2010.”
“The Snow Apocalypse of 2013”
“That time it snowed twice in like a month span December 2017-January2018”
We remember those days because there’s nothing quite like them. We get to be with friends and family members we don’t normally get to be cooped up with.
We get to make miniature snow men before the sun steals them back into the ground.
We throw snow balls and take the lids off our plastic tubs to attempt to sled.
We feel the magic and we try to savor it.
My parents still talk about that “blizzard of 93′ ” where it snowed 6 inches and we lost power so we went to stay with our aunt and uncle.
There’s even a picture of my two sisters standing the in the blowing snow, one sister crying and the other happy.
I was a baby in 93, but it’s as if I remember what happened that year because we talk about it all the time.
I’ll never forget about the walk that my, now husband, took in the President’s Day snow of 2010 to ask me to prom.
Because snow in the south is something to be savored.
It’s our chance to live out the pretty christmas just a month or two late.
It’s our chance to make that soup that it’s normally to hot outside to make or make hot chocolate just for the heck of it.
Snow in the South marks memories for us.
Laugh at us all you want, but this will never change about us. It will continue to mark us for generations to come, and we don’t mind it one little bit.