Whipped Cream Snow

A Hallmark Card of a weekend left me grateful for a nap Sunday afternoon. The two feet of snow or more that threw itself on us Friday and Saturday way outpaced the shovels, the plows, the snowblowers even in our Lake Effect trained village. I pulled the car out of the barn and left big cuts in the snow on the driveway. I barreled through the plow mound of snow where the driveway meets the road, and pulled onto the oreo cookie ice cream mess of the street. The heap of snow barricading our driveway was the only indication that the plow had been by.

The road to Silver Creek is a pretty gentle one, till the end. Bennett State Road crosses a tributary of Walnut Creek and dips down at King Road. It is a family road. We drove the six miles every week to Grandmother’s House and of course we sung ‘To Grandmother’s house we go.’ The snow does drift over the road. The wind does blow. The Walnut Creek tributary would get designated ‘river’ in most parts of the country. Walnut Creek certainly would. I did go over the river and through the woods. I crossed over the thruway too. That is not in the song. My Volvo is not a horse.

I wasn’t going to Grandmother’s house either. I was going to spend a long day in a Nativity crash course with kids. Somehow kids came. Helpers came. Parents came. Everyone stayed. Pancake breakfast. Cookie decorating. Christmas carols. Children turned into sheep or angels. Or kings. The long legged young devotee of the game ‘Hot Potato’ looked up at our wardrobe mistress and said firmly “I want to be baby Jesus.” The wardrobe mistress did not miss a beat, though the other children were scandalized. “We have to find more swaddling cloths” said she. Soon the lanky Baby Jesus was cocooned nicely. A sturdy youth group member carried Baby Jesus and nestled him/her in the (fortunately quite large) manger.

Parents and youth group members trudged with shovels through the snow to shovel out church members. One 95 year old who walks four or five miles everyday declined their help. “I need the exercise” she said.

Sunday morning we dressed in our roles. The long legged young devotee of ‘Hot Potato’ had changed her mind. “I want to be an angel” she said in between bites of cookie that had somehow been purloined off the coffee hour fellowship table. “Are you sure?” I asked. She was sure. She strode out, poised, into the sanctuary, halo securely over her head, wings behind. Our other angel, our littlest angel’s wings and halo went askew with every step she took.

Everyone was missing our angel of the decades, our Laurel, who never once deviated from her chosen angelic role, during the annual pageants or any other time either. Like Peter Pan, Laurel stayed a child. Each new generation of children came to understand why they grew up and she stayed a child and loved her for it. Laurel was always ‘First Angel.’ “Well,” someone sighed and blew his nose. “She is a real angel now.” We got through it, enjoyed our angels, our sheep, and a four month baby with pacifier who pulled off ‘Baby Jesus’ with poise and courage. The children remembered some of the words of the Carols. No one got into a fistfight. The sheep didn’t stray. We exited stage right.

A nap, a fire. A big pot of soup. Snowshoeing. Finishing Christmas cards. A new book. A cat sleeping on a dog’s bed. A dog sleeping on a sofa. A Hallmark Card of a weekend. Oh, and did I mention that I skunked my granddaughter in cribbage?

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