Post of Christmas Past #6

A White Christmas? In Alabama? A WHITE Christmas?? A white CHRISTMAS?

In Alabama, we get snow occasionally and it is usually on a Tuesday or Wednesday when we have school the next day.  School is never dismissed for the day. If anything it may be delayed an hour or so.  So two years ago, when we all woke up on Christmas day to find inches and inches of pristine, freshly fallen snow covering every available surface.. well that was a Christmas miracle. It was so deep that the grass wasn't showing through it. It really was as if God draped a white blanket over a sleeping Alabama. I'm sure small children everywhere were dazzled and half-way blinded when they looked out the window. Although... I'm not sure if anyone was as excited as my grandmother. Imogene is over seventy years old and several years ago, we restarted the tradition of spending Christmas Eve night at their house in Red Bay. Since she and my grandfather are getting older, we want to make as many memories as we can. But, watching a seventy-something year old woman run out into the snow in her pajamas and house shoes and then LAY DOWN in the freezing snow to do a snow angel... well that was something that none of us were prepared for. 

This isn't the type of 75? year old woman who looks 55 and acts 45. This is a 74? year old woman who looks 74 and acts 76. 

My grandfather started off scolding her for what she was about to do. He told her she'd get sick and had a sternness to his voice that I have only heard once or twice. But once she was out the door, he just dropped his gaze and shook his head. Everyone else stared on and mixed between laughter and smiles of disbelief to words of worry and calls and pleads to come back inside. Once she had finished her snow angel, my brother ran outside and helped her get up. He walked her inside where someone had a blanket and a towel. All she was saying was "It's a Christmas miracle." All day. "It's a Christmas miracle" with tears in her eyes and a satisfied smile on her face. 

It really was.