Extended Christmas

We have a lot of snow in England at the moment, some even say its the worst Winter in 30 years.The Infant school opened only to shut down on the first day at Midday. The Junior school over the road stayed open, they did let you take the kids home if you had a sibling at the Infant school. Both schools are at the top of the hill, literally on the brow of the hill, with the soup bowl woods just behind the Junior school. I decided it was safer to walk than drive the car, so JJ stayed while I walked the kids up the hill. I kept on saying "remember this", as we listened to the sound of the snow crushing under our feet. I got them to observe the snow as we walked to school, the pretty natural  "pictures" they could see and how they could draw them  in the future. I encouraged them to observe the shapes, I want them to have memories for the future. When they have children and grandchildren they can tell them about the big winter of 2009/2010, just how pretty it all looked. They may even remember me.  After school  we went through the woods ,the snow looked great behind the school as I showed the girls. There must have been 150 people all enjoying the snow and maybe 15 people with sledges, any of you film fans out there will remember "Rosebud" and citizen Kane, so I needn't say any more. For me though it was an opportunity to plant seeds in my kids imagination, joy and love and snow. Today and the weekend we missed another load of snow but there may be more tomorrow. In fact it was noticably milder and the snow in the back garden wasn't rock solid, it had melted enough to make a snowman. So I started a snowman for my girls and when they get back from school together we can finish it off. These simple pleasures are what makes family, so I hope wherever you are reading this you do the same  for your own family.