WHITE CHRISTMAS

WHITE-KNUCKLE BOXING DAY

I love a white Christmas. I love when the snow doesn’t come too early — like in November, or even October. I also love it when it comes early enough to avoid any last-minute worrying about a green Christmas — green as in no snow.

I love it best when we get those huge white fluffy snowflakes drifting down on Christmas Eve, though to hope for that every year might be a touch greedy.

I know abundant snow on the ground can be hard on motorists and pedestrians alike. But if it’s polite enough to wait until December to fall — the 21st being THE best date for snow before Christmas — then I welcome it with open arms and gloved hands.

(The first snowfalls, that almost never stays, I greet with open mouth, extended tongue and head tilted back to face the sky. It’s a personal tradition I’ve had since childhood. One I think a few others may share.)

So I welcome timely snow, almost no matter how deep. After all, if we’re going to live this far north (Ottawa, Canada), we might as well enjoy one of the benefits of our local environment — that mood-enhancing blanket of white that makes turns the outdoors into more of a winter wonderland. At night, coloured lights that sparkle in the crisp, cold air, cast glowing bands of colour across a softened canvas.

Oddly enough, at the same time, a blanket of snow outside can make the indoors seem a touch more warm and cosy. Especially if one doesn’t have to go outside too often. Better yet, almost never.

Around here snow gets plowed from roads and streets and most importantly at this time of year, shopping mall parking lots. So after the initial disruption, it often ends up easy enough to get around.

Sure there’s the shovelling and snow-blowing of walkways and driveways, but usually there’s a welcome respite before the next snowfall — or until the city plow returns to dump a small wall of heavy snow across the end of your just-cleared driveway.

Comfy and cosy

Still, whether it’s upon returning from work, Christmas shopping, or moving tons of white stuff from the driveway, it’s always nice to come inside when there’s snow outside. There’s often a certain extra layer of relaxation to be gained from sitting back, warm socks on feet, warm mug in hand and warm heart settling down from the sudden exertion, while gazing out at the quiet, peaceful, comforting view of unmarked snow.

This is pretty much what we had this year. For which we felt much gratitude.

What I hate is rain. It can turn things dark and dirty, revealing stuff we were grateful to not have to see again till spring. One year, several decades ago, while travelling from home to home for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day visits with family and friends, we actually had to deal with flooded intersections. But that was highly unusual, to say nothing of slightly surreal.

Freezing rain is probably more common than rain. Surprisingly enough, it’s more of a love-hate thing.

If it comes in the night and isn’t too severe and is dealt with in time to not pose severe hazard to motorist and pedestrian alike, it can be quite enchanting in terms of providing a sparkling, crystal coating on everything, especially trees and branches.

If however, as it did this year on Boxing Day, it results in a nuisance ice storm, knocking out power, threatening trees, downing branches and making driving quite hazardous, it’s obviously far less welcome.

Thus it was that we woke on Boxing Day (the day after Christmas Day in Canada and England) facing treacherous walking and driving conditions on a day we were scheduled to visit family on the far side of the city.

Strap-on safety

Fortunately, things were manageable if one took appropriate measures. Wear boots with a decent grip. In Mariette’s case, she got to add the strap-on Icers she received from Santa (via Lee Valley Tools). Basically they are thickish rubber soles, sporting screw-head-style studs, that are strapped to the bottom of one’s boots.

As son Travis, who was visiting for Christmas as usual, and I slowly inched our way to the car, I couldn’t help mentally chastising myself for not having bought a pair for myself. And Travis. And maybe Tyler and Miche. And why not . . . ?

Well, maybe next year. We may have bought mostly small, neat and/or practical stuff in doing seemingly 80% to 90% of our Christmas shopping in one night, in our first ever, long-anticipated visit to the internationally famous Lee Valley Tools, but it’s amazing how quickly these things can add up, money wise.

(I’m just glad our first visit there coincided with Christmas shopping. As I told Mariette: “Imagine if we’d gone and spent this much, or close to it, merely visiting the place for the first time. At least this way everything does double duty as Christmas gifts.” And yes, the stuff there is so neat we probably would have still bought extras of things we liked, to give to people we like.)

But as I say, getting ,more pairs of Icers are for another time. For this year, Travis and I merely moved slow and steady. One trick is to slide your boot along the slick ice, rather than lifting your feet. The trouble with lifting your foot is that it’s more likely to slip when you step back down, and experience has shown that such sudden falls can be quite painful.

Of course it’s not enough to just get to the vehicle, one has to then circle it, banging and cracking and removing the ice that covers everything. Windows AND lights, front and back, are most important.

Cross-checking car doors

At least it was fairly mild compared to the time many years ago when we, and our neighbours, were all out there banging brooms and hockey sticks against our vehicles that were covered with ice so thick that a thump with closed hand or trusty elbow had no hope of even cracking this dangerous heavy coating.

Come to think of it, that might have been THE Great Ice Storm 11 years ago that had people, from here to Montréal, and back, without power for weeks. We were fortunate. I think we lost power for only a day or so.

In fact in our part of town, we got off fairly lucky, all around. Though we did almost lose our orphaned white birch in the backyard. (More about that in EMERGENCY RESCUE, FOR A TREE.)

Eventually we were set and Mariette backed the car out of the driveway with great care, with Travis and I keeping a sharp eye up and down the street for the sudden appearance of any other motorist, who might be hard put to stop in time.

We slowly crawled down the street, testing traction. Mariette, being a good driver, knew to try stopping BEFORE getting to the first stop sign. On ice or even just snow, it is always amazing how many drivers wait to the last second, only to find themselves embarrassingly — and dangerously — sliding right through the intersection when there’s virtually no traction to be found.

Moving with caution we were soon enough on the multi-lane Hwy. 416, where we saw our first car in the ditch. It’s never a good sign when the car in the ditch is turned completely around and facing back in the direction from whence it came.

There were few moving cars in sight, but enough had already passed by to help melt the ice, to a still-slick but fairly thin covering of icy slush.

By the time we got to the 417, known as the Queensway as it passes from east to west through the city, increased traffic — still far short of normal — had removed more of the icy slush, though a dangerous amount remained between lanes.

I may have exaggerated in using the term “white-knuckle,” but we were on high alert as we cautiously made our way to the east end of town to our breakfast appointment.

Slip-sliding away

Once safely parked, we still faced further hazards just getting to the restaurant. It was out of the car, gingerly. Get your balance and step cautiously up onto a sidewalk that was not only wide and covered with sheer ice, but also sloping toward the street.

Mariette offered me her arm but I politely declined. Not only did I need the room to do my slide-this-foot, slide-that-foot sort of crab-walk across the sidewalk, but if I did slip and fall, I didn’t want to be dragging her down with me.

Down with a sidestep off the curb into an ice/slushy incoming lane. Across the slippery gap slowly, hoping no car suddenly turns in. Up and over a narrow divider. Slowly across the icy/slushy outgoing lane — again hoping no traffic would appear. Finally, back up onto the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.

The ice was patchier there but why was this walk also so wide — AND sloping DOWN toward the street?

Were we glad to eventually get inside the restaurant to the welcoming smile of our other son, Tyler, and his 16-month-old daughter, Rachel? You bet!

Unfortunately our daughter-in-law Miche had to stay home having been felled by a nasty bug. (Cold? Flu? Combo? I never did find out the specifics but when we did get to see her later in the morning, it was obvious she was indeed suffering.)

After a fine Gabriel’s breakfast and a lot of fun with Rachel — once she got over her initial make-strange-reach-for-“Dada” welcome — we cautiously travelled on to Tyler and Miche’s house.

Tyler said he almost slid into the snowbank before turning into his driveway, but we, coming from the other way, never noticed.

We had a lovely Boxing Day, exchanging and opening gifts and playing with Rachel. (See THROUGH THE EYES OF A CHILD.)

In the late afternoon, as planned, Mariette and I and Travis drove to an east-end cinema to see the movie Avatar in IMAX 3-D and quite enjoyed it. (See AVATAR: HOW COULD SOMETHING SO TRITE BE SO AWESOME?.)

Safely home again

Originally we were to return Travis to Tyler’s so he could spend the night and the next day with them and they could drive him to the airport for his flight back to Toronto the following evening. But Travis, not wanting to impose with Miche feeling so poorly, had brought his luggage with us to the theatre. A quick call to check Miche’s condition after the movie confirmed what we expected — now was not a good time for him to stay over and need a ride to the airport.

This being Boxing Day, by the time we’d driven to the movie, traffic had increased considerably, with Boxing Day shoppers getting some belated courage, and road conditions improved measurably, with more tires and more friction to melt away the freezing rain. Avatar is a longish movie, so by the time we drove home in the early evening dark, traffic had thinned again considerably.

Still, Mariette continued to drive with appropriate caution and though it again took longer to get to our destination, we arrived safely.

We navigated the driveway with care and were quite happy to be home once more.

The weather may have been miserable and the driving conditions hazardous, but with proper Canadian caution, we didn’t have to sacrifice a day with family that we’d been so looking forward to with such delight.

Everything was well and good. Until I woke up before dawn and discovered my poor birch tree had not fared as well. Which brought back memories of a fierce fight to save it from the ice, 11 years ago. (See EMERGENCY RESCUE, FOR A TREE.)

Freezing rain. God’s way of saying you’d better drive, and walk, slowwwly.