White Knight

It's December 15, 2025 and Christmas season is in full swing. In the Southland that means clear, sunny skies with temperatures dipping all the way down into the sixties during the day. (It's even colder at night!)

Growing up in the Great Pactific Northwest I grew accustomed to wintry white. Not where I lived, in the western GPNW, but on the other side of the mountains. Where my grandparents lived. Snow so thick that sometimes, just sometimes, you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. Ah, for those slick and slippery sled rides down long and winding roads.

Christmas always meant, at least in my memory, an endless car ride through darkest night, fighting heavy eyelids until the battle was lost, only to wake up in grandma's driveway. The backdrop of AM radio full of classic tunes and monotonous talk that fuzzed out every time we went out of range and had to change the station. Parents whispering in the front seat so the kids asleep in the back would stay that way. When we finally arrived my siblings and I stumbled out of the car and trudged to rooms made up for grandsons and daughters.

When the light of day finally hit the floor where we slept it was go time. Barely time to eat before we were out in it, in our puffy jackets, knee high snow boots, mittens and caps to run like mad hatters through the ivory countryside. Incredibly, the little town of one thousand was full of kids our age. Friends of the season we knew well and who couldn't wait to brave the weather too. And it was cold!!

Funny thing was, we didn't know it. We threw snowballs, raced on our radio flyers and lopped over manmade ledges onto the street five feet below, and ran. Seemed like every game we made up we were running. What did we know of cold?

The tree out front was the biggest blue spruce any of us had ever seen. It was full at the bottom and pointy up top, just like the thick Douglas Fir next to the fireplace inside. We used that tree like a beacon. No matter where we were, that tree was home.

Winter above the forty seventh parallel made for short days and long nights. December a couple hours south of the Canadian border put ribbon around my childhood, with hot cocoa on the front burner and dreams of ripping wrapping paper on the back. It was good, and fine, and fun, and innocent.

When the big day finally came we tore through the presents and went right back outside. I can't remember a single thing I got those December 25th's, but I remember chasing my brother as he tumbled a mile a minute down empty, frozen streets on the sled my daughter inherited. That was something.

I think it helps to look back on better times when news blares danger, death and disaster ad nausium. For me it's a little snow at Christmas. For you, I don't know. But you do. Be bold and remember. Cancel the hate out there with love and kindness and a good memory or two.

Merry Christmas.

Be safe. Be blessed. Resist when you must (fiftyfifty.one) and celebrate the better angels of humanity.