Winter Tradition

Dear Parents,

There is a tradition in my classroom. At the beginning of winter each year we create paper snowflakes and tape them on the windows. These snowflakes seem to do wonders because every time that we've done this we get a pretty good snowfall shortly afterwards. This has led me to think of the ritual as something akin to a rain-dance, only for snow. Well, as you can probably guess, last Friday my students cut out and taped to our classroom windows a bunch of paper snowflakes. As we finished we all predicted how much snow would fall due to our efforts, and sure enough, as I'm certain you know, snow did fall within two days!

Now I have to admit that on Sunday when I woke to snow I wasn't completely surprised. The day before I had put some new all-season tires on the car and finished all of my schoolwork. When I got up on Sunday morning I found myself running through the house to look out each window just like I did when I was 10. It was still quite dark outside so I turned the lights on to our outdoor Christmas tree and then I snuck back into the bedroom and woke Linda up. I got her to stumble out of bed and take a look at the snow falling in our front yard lit up by the colored lights of our tree decoration. Well, Linda and I are a pretty good match because the little girl in her came out too and we both just grinned and watched the snow fall while our dogs played in our back yard.

There is a certain something that snow does for Linda and me. It seems to help us forget the worries we have about some of the little things in our lives and refocus on what's important, laughter, friends, and family. As we all make our final "mad rushes" in December, trying to get everything on our lists accomplished, keep in mind the joys those simple things like snowflakes can bring to the children in us all.

Take care, have a wonderful winter holiday, and may 2009 bring us all peace and prosperity.

Russ