White as Snow: A Christmas Eve Tale

It snowed quite a bit last week, leaving us with about a foot and a half of the white stuff. On this day, we had rain to melt the snow. It poured all day long, and a weird snow mist arose and enveloped everything. I am not usually one to post variations of the same shot twice in the same week. However, I just couldn't resist sharing the one above.

The snow was wet and melty, and it was raining and the mist was rising. Everything was weirdly white, and luminous, but not clear. The trees were standing on white snow, raising their limbs into the white sky, with white mist wrapped around them. It was surreal, and lovely, and strange, and beautiful, all at once. Like walking in a dream.

On Christmas eve, we typically have family plans that include driving to visit with my parents and whatever assortment of siblings and others show up. I love to go to the Christmas eve service at my home church, where they light the candles, turn out the lights, and sing Silent Night.

However, there was to be none of that this year. For there is some bad news I have not told you. My mother tested positive for Covid last week, and she and my dad are in quarantine. Shortly after that happened, she fell, broke her hip, and ended up in the Lewistown Hospital.

They did surgery almost immediately, and she is already recuperating. She appears to be recovering nicely and should be released to rehab sometime this weekend. But she will remain in the hospital through Christmas. This is the first Christmas my parents will have spent apart since they first met. She is not allowed to have any visitors. *Late-breaking update: Mom has been released to rehabilitation on Christmas day!

So there will be no actual face-to-face family visits during this Coronavirus Christmas season. But I received a note from my little sister on Facebook, saying that we could try to do a Zoom version of the traditional reading of Twas the Night Before Christmas. Of course, I said Yes!

And so, at 6:30 in the evening, we all got on Zoom, and we tried to be as festive as we could be, given the situation. My father, age 90, read the story, as he always does. And we turned out the lights, lit candles, and sang Silent Night. T. Tiger, still wearing his red bow, joined us; you may see a photo of him with the family Zoomers in the extras!

It felt like that story of the Grinch, and Christmas, where all of the typical trappings of Christmas were stolen, and yet somehow they STILL had Christmas together, and joined hands, and sang sweet carols. Only WE were the Who's down in Whoville when the Grinch's heart grew THREE sizes that day.

Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.

I believe that this posting needs several songs to accompany it. First, here is the U2 song White as Snow that goes with the photo above. And of course, we must include Stevie Nicks, singing Silent Night, as my family did, together and online.

And finally, here is a wish from my heart straight to yours. For I fear there are many who may be in the same boat we are this Christmas, or even far worse, without access to family and friends and loved ones. Much as we wish things were different, may you find peace, and comfort, and gratitude in your heart for your blessings, anyway; don't let the world steal your joy. And may you find ways to show your love without your actual presence. If you can't always get what you want, may you get what you need. So my final song is the Rolling Stones, with You Can't Always Get What You Want.

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need