Winter/Christmas on the West Coast is a blessing and a curse.

I grew up with snow in winter. The first snowfall always seemed to happen right around if not ON Halloween and it stayed in some form or another until my birthday rolled around in early March.

As kids we spent all our free time outside, playing in it, we learned to drive in it, we hitched our dog to the sled (once) and she pulled us around the block. We built forts in it, even ate our lunch outside in it, and the idea of school being closed because of it? Never happened. It was magical.

Here I am now, 30 years later, sitting by an open window, on the 2nd of December, enjoying a cloudy and rainy, (but not unpleasant) 50 degree day. I now live on the west coast, just north of Seattle. I enjoy the weather here about 90 percent of the time, but there is something very odd feeling to me about December without snow. It is not a new feeling, I have been living on the coast in some place or another for about 13 years and I feel the same every year, the longing for ( just a bit) of snow. Sometimes my prayers are answered, and we get a couple sprinkles and we take advantage of it, but for it to last longer than a couple days is rare, even more rare is for us to have actual snow on Christmas Day.

This year I will hope, (like I always do) that it will snow on Christmas, so my kids, who own rain boots instead of snow boots can experience the same joy I had, to wake up on Christmas morning and experience the world peacefully blanketed in soft white majesty.

If not, we'll make some cocoa in the thermos, pack up the car, put on multiple layers of socks and our rain boots and go looking for some in the mountain passes, and enjoy the best of both worlds.