It’s that time of year again; my halls are decked with dripping snow boots, pants, hats, and mittens. We’ve been frolicking in the fluffy stuff, building forts, packing snowballs, snapping snow scenes for holiday cards.
First out the door on a snow day is Dahlia, our resident snow cat. Ever since she was a kitten she’s loved the snow. Her mother, on the other hand, is happy to sit on the doorstep, soaking up the rays, but not setting paw anywhere near that disgusting cold, wet, white stuff. 
Love it or hate it, we all fall somewhere on the snow spectrum. As a child I was way over to the left, under radically obsessed. The fact that we rarely ever got more than a mushy millimeter of snow in Ireland may have had something to do with it. Even a good frost classified as a “snowy” day. And then one year we got the mother of all snowfalls. It snowed for twenty-four hours straight, and by the end of it, the country was in total lock down, which lasted for weeks. I remember walking along snow banks with the tops of hedges poking out, and coming across cars buried in snow caves at the side of the road. My toddler brother owes his continued existence to his red snow suit. But for that, we’d have lost him, sunk up to his little uxters in a snowdrift. Needless to say, I was in heaven. 
Now, living in the Northeast US, we get at least one good footer of a storm a year, and sometimes more. When the local forecasters go into hyperbolic mode about the massive storm barreling our way, I still feel that tingle of excitement. And even if I don’t always want to run out and make snow angels, I delight in the transformed landscape, and drink in the sharp tang of snowy air. 
I believe I inherited my love of snow from my father. He never failed to get excited about a flake of snow, and often, when I call him up and tell him of our latest snowfall, he’ll express deep envy. My mother—not so much. She falls on the other end of the spectrum. Happy to look at a pristine landscape through a window, while snuggled up with a good book and a cup of tea, don’t ask her to step outside.
Where do you fall on the snow spectrum? Love it, hate it, or somewhere in between?
Melissa Shaw-Smith 