Have a White Christmas

“Over the past four years, I have spent my Christmases in the snow-swept plains of northern United States. Having grown up in the subtropics, white Christmas was a new experience for me. In the beginning, the snowy landscapes are breathtakingly beautiful. But after a while, the long winter nights and the short, overcast days grow wearisome. The trees are bare. The grass is buried. There is no green, no birdsong, and hardly any sunlight. Winter where I live is cold, dreary, and tiring. I remember when spring came my first year and the snow started melting: the drip, drip, drip of melted snow was such an exciting sound. And the first patch of green grass! It was a beautiful sight.”

“I have had a white Christmas in I think it was 1991, I was in England at the time and it snowed heavily during the night and throughout the next morning/day. I remember running down stairs and opening up the mail slot in the door to look out to see if it was snow I could hear when I got up in the morning. I was 8, it wasn't the first time I'd seen snow but I'd spent most of my life living on an island in the South Pacific, so it was a huge novelty to have it on Christmas. The only thing I remember, apart from the excitement, is that I saw a bit pile of snow in the backyard, ran at it to climb it and jumped onto it and ended up in a bush that the snow had covered.”