The Northeast was blanketed with snow last weekend, and I loved it — because I love how snow humbles us.
When it snows in my hometown of Pittsburgh, people pour into the streets. We shovel sidewalks and driveways, invigorated by the crisp air and the physical work. We sip coffee from thermos cups as we catch up with neighbors.
Snow still fills me with the same joy I felt as a boy when school was canceled. I still feel the urge to grab my Flexible Flyer sled and head for the steepest hill I can find — just to laugh like a kid again for a few hours.
I lived in Washington, D.C., for nearly eight years, and I loved when it snowed there, too — for different reasons.
This is the city where allegedly smart people decide what's best for the rest of us. They pass complex laws few of them read. Regulators interpret those laws into rules nobody understands.
But let a few white flakes fall from the sky, and the smart people panic.
Government offices shut down. Schools close. People who lecture the rest of us about hoarding toilet paper and bottled water flock to stores to hoard both.
Snow is real, you see. It falls when it wants. We can slip on it. We can wreck our cars. Our mail carriers can slip on our sidewalks — which is why we get up early to make sure our sidewalks are safe.
Snow reminds us that despite all our technology, we control very little in life. I learned that lesson on Christmas Eve, 1976.
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The snow started coming down hard a few hours after we arrived at my aunt's house in the country, about 20 miles from home. I was 14. My five sisters and I were growing up. Only the youngest still believed in Santa Claus.
The drive there had been tense. Teenagers don't enjoy being packed into a station wagon, and my father was in a somber mood. He had lost both of his parents young, and the joyfulness of Christmas didn’t always come easily to him.
But inside the house, the mood changed. My mother's family was large — five siblings with 26 children among them — and the place buzzed with laughter.
The snow came fast.
My father urged us to leave early. On the highway, the snow muffled the sound of the tires. It felt like we were gliding through the countryside in a massive sleigh.
My father tuned the radio to KDKA’s old-time broadcasts, which aired every Christmas Eve.
Don Ameche and Frances Langford were arguing in “The Bickersons,” a 1940s show about an unhappy couple. Ameche thanked Langford for the breakfast oatmeal she left on the stove.
“That isn't oatmeal!” she said. “I'm wallpapering.”
We laughed heartily at the performance — my father's booming laugh most prominent of all.
It felt like we were in another era, when families gathered together in the living room in front of their wooden cathedral radios.
Later, our grandmother told us stories of Christmas when she was a child.
We sang Christmas carols.
The snow gave us a wonderful peacefulness and calm that night.
It’s the best Christmas Eve I ever had.
I pray every family will enjoy a white Christmas this year.
Find Tom Purcell’s syndicated column, humor books, and funny videos of his dog, Thurber, at TomPurcell.com. Email him at Tom@TomPurcell.com
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