Some interesting facts: The odds of Amarillo having a white Christmas are 1:14.29 (from 1961-1990). Going back to 1893, the earliest date from which we have weather records, Amarillo has had 25 white Christmases. Only 25 times in the last 118 years! (By the way, in case you're interested, this would mean we have a 1:5 chance of having a white Christmas, not a 1:14. What this means is that we're getting lots less snow now compared to the early 20th century. Amarillo had over 10 inches of snow on the ground at Christmas in 1918 and almost 5 inches in 1939, both dates prior to the time period used to calculate the 1:14 statistic! It's probably more accurate to look at the more recent data, like the 1:14 statistic. (We've had such a drought the last couple of years, I can't even imagine what it would be like to get 10 inches of moisture at one time!) Does this mean my husband was right? Maybe so. It isn't fifty:fifty, that's for sure! Having a white Christmas in Amarillo is pretty rare.
Anyway, having snow at Christmas was really pretty and added to the already neat situation of Christmas falling on a Sunday. Christmas seemed especially worshipful having both Christmas eve and Christmas day worship services this year. And the blanket of snow seemed to cover the ugliness of our parched land like Christ's atonement covers the ugliness of our parched, sinful hearts. It seemed fitting somehow.
Did you have a white Christmas, too?
Soooo pretty! I am in St. Cloud, MN, and we had a brown Christmas...which is pretty much about as rare as a white Christmas is in Amarillo. I can say the feeling wasn't quite the same, but I also had some neat spiritual connections. I pointed out that the majority of the world NEVER has a white Christmas. This really helps us put our celebration into perspective--remembering what Christmas is really about...and it's not a Hallmark card picture of what Christmas should look like. Having Christmas Day on Sunday also helped shake our traditions (and expectations of what Christmas morning "should" look like) and stir things up a little bit. We knew there would be no time to open presents in the morning before church--it would be way too distracting. But I had an object lesson instead that prepared our hearts for the service. It was so cool to have things turned upside down. A great reminder that we can't put God into a box.
ReplyDeleteWe are also in a drought here, but I remember a popular meteorologist predicting only a couple months ago that our winter would be "colder and wetter" than "normal" due to "climate change"...and now that the opposite is true, he is saying our winter is "warmer" and we are in a "severe drought" due to "climate change." I love how the "science" of climate change can be defined as whatever the current climate conditions seem to be. (Ooops, did I confuse "weather" and "climate" again?) Oh, and by the way, our drought cannot even be comparable to that in Texas because ours only started. :/
We did not have a white Christmas, but of course we were not expecting one. However, last year it did snow on Christmas Day, and that was a huge deal! The last time it had snowed on Christmas here was before my husband was born (and he is 44!). We usually get one or two snow flurries a year, and a major snow that shuts down the entire area every few years.
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