Snow Day

When I was a kid, between December and March, I longed for as many snow days as Mother Nature could afford in any given year. I didn't want one during the weekend. What a letdown when that happened! The idea was that snow days meant "holiday", like winter break, spring break or pupil-free days. But, those days were less appealing being scheduled.

The allure of a snow day was the spontaneity of it. Instead of doing math problems and answering reading comprehension questions, I wanted Mother Nature to throw a wrench in the teacher's lesson plan allowing me and my friends to build snowmen, pummel one another with ice balls, and more than anything, sled down the schoolyard hill on our toboggans in the fresh white powder. Triumphantly, we would glimpse the dark, icy windows of our classrooms while repeatedly marching up the hill and sledding down in the schoolyard. If we were as advanced as kids are today, we probably would have waved our middle fingers toward those empty halls. Eventually, we trudged home with chattering chins, stomped our moon boots clean and begged for a steaming cup of hot chocolate.

That was Iowa.

Living in sunny Southern California, my kids don't experience snow days as I know them. Out here, snow is imported on snow day. It's a planned activity conveniently scheduled in the teacher's lesson plan, right after the math problems and before reading group. In fact, the teachers send home a note to ensure that parents send appropriate clothing for the snow. Perhaps they fear the kids will contract frost bite.

Imported and scheduled snow is not really snow. Not the white fluffy kind that beautifully lines the trees and freezes your nose hairs. California snow is brought to the kids' schools by the ton. It's made from giant ice cubes ground into little ice granules that immediately stick together, harden and melt. To me, there's no fun in it. It's like removing the presents from Christmas or the chocolate bunny from Easter.

Don't get me wrong. I have no intention of moving back to the chillier four-season climates experienced by much of the rest of this country unless I'm handcuffed to a moving van. I have little interest in purchasing another shovel to clear paths to my car or the mailbox. I've done my fair share of scooping and blowing snow.

But a part of me feels like my girls are missing out on the realities of snow day. They are overly excited to wear hats, gloves, scarves, winter coats and snow pants. Honestly, they don't need that apparel, it's more for fun. It's like dressing up for Halloween or being a princess for a day. If anything, they are more likely to encounter heat exhaustion around here on snow day than frost bite.

In fact, one teacher wore a skirt, sneakers with no socks, gloves and a white tank-top as she pushed kids on a toboggan down a hard, manmade snow hill on Scooter's snow day. The external temperature gauge read 74 degrees in my car. Not a cloud hung over our heads. It was clear and sunny. For us, snow day required little more than the use of sunglasses and sunscreen.

Only in California!