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Monday, December 29, 2008

Christmas Day 2008

When the rental car lady attempted her upsell on Christmas Eve, I fell for it. “You can upgrade to a four-wheel-drive Jeep for only $90,” she said. I looked outside, where Michigan winter had hit early. The snow was falling hard, and the roads were covered in snow and slush.

“Let’s do it,” I said.

Good thing, too. Thirty miles from my parents’ house, a firetruck blocked the highway, lights flashing, protecting a scene of towtrucks and ambulances that were buzzing around a vehicle upside down in the ditch. They gave no instructions on how to get around the barrier, so I picked the closest road and ended up on unplowed dirt roads overhung with heavy tree branches and flanked by white fields. I’ve never seen so much white. It was beautiful, falling from the sky, covering the road, the fields, the trees, the igloo houses with their smoking chimneys. The ditch threatened to pull me into its cold embrace, but I laughed at it and drove on.

Three feet of snow covered the ground. “I want to go cross country skiing,” I told my parents on Christmas Day. They said it was too deep and would be impossible to ski in that. I said, “Sounds like a challenge,” and took off with my dad’s black lab puppy, Trooper, and my sister’s German Shepherd, Shiloh. At the bottom of the hill that stretches out to the buried corn field, I biffed it and landed face first in the snow. Getting back upright was an epic struggle, with Trooper bouncing on my face and solid land out of reach. Shiloh, who doesn’t like me but was nonetheless happy to trail along, looked off into the distance and pretended I didn’t exist.

Finally, I made it back onto my feet with only a little snow down the crack of my ass, and set off on the 2-mile trek around the perimeter of the field. Trooper heels quite well, especially for a puppy. Unfortunately, this also meant that he walked on the back of my skis the entire way, which only added to the difficulty of plowing through all that snow. He had a look of unfiltered glee, though, so I let him continue. Shiloh continued her snub from 10 feet behind me.

By the time I made it back to my parent’s house, Trooper was still trotting along with an air of excited discovery, Shiloh was dragging ass and maybe a little sorry that she went along, and my legs were sore.

That was my Christmas. Hope yours was merry and bright.

Posted by Aaron on December 29, 2008 11:46 AM