White? Green? Brown? Any combination thereof?
Although we're not sure at the moment, the possibility exists that those of us living in the city of Marquette could be having our fourth or fifth snow-free Christmas in the past dozen years later this week. It all depends upon what a few weather systems do, including one moving through today, and it led to me having a discussion with a listener on the air Friday. If we do indeed have a snow-free or a snow-lacking Christmas again this year, is it better to refer to it as a “Green Christmas” or a “Brown Christmas”? “Brown Christmas” certainly is a more accurate term, because that’s certainly what you see the most of these days. But “Green Christmas” is a little, well, prettier. A little more gentle. A little more Christmas-like.
And it’s not like it’s totally inaccurate. I can look out the big studio window at work and see nothing but green, thanks to the cedar trees and snow-free courtyard in front of the First Presbyterian Church across the street. And when I walk to work every morning, I see the green (well, partial green) on front lawns ranging from my next-door neighbor to that of the Peter White Public Library. So while “Brown Christmas” is certainly more accurate this time of the year, “Green Christmas” can’t be dismissed out of hand.
So what do YOU think? Green or brown? Seeing as how, at least in Marquette, those might be the majority of our choices this year, I think we should decide this, and decide this quite soon. Unless, of course, Mother Nature renders this whole discussion moot. It IS 2020, after all.
We'll see...
****
Also, for some people, I know today’s an important day in one respect--it’s the shortest day of the year. Just a few hours before I typed this the winter solstice occurred and our lovely planet has started to (slowly) tilt the northern hemisphere back toward the sun. That means that every day from now through June we get a few more minutes of daylight.
That means the days start getting longer starting today. So it’s all uphill from here. Or downhill from here, I guess, depending upon your point of view and whether or not you think “up” or “down” is the good way to go. Regardless of the semantics, we start getting more daylight now. Thanks to our ever-present cloud cover, we may not notice it right away, but our days WILL be getting longer.
That means winter will be over before we know it. Of course, winter has to actually start this year for it to be over before we know it, but if it ever does get an actual foothold on the area, we’ll be ready.
Longer days, here we come!
No comments:
Post a Comment