Winter Wonderlands

I’m flying back to Ottawa tomorrow, to hang with the family over the holidays. Frankly, I’m a bit torn about it. On the one hand, it’ll be good to see everyone, since I usually only fly home once a year (plus exceptional events like weddings, etc…), and I do love me a white Christmas. On the other hand, living on the West Coast for eight years has turned me into a huge wimp, and I can’t take Ottawa winters anymore. So, I guess I’ll be doing what I do every year: stay indoors as much as possible, get cozy with space heaters, and admire all that beautiful snow from where it’s warm. And if I have to venture outside, bundle the hell up.

I’m flying back to Ottawa tomorrow, to hang with the family over the holidays. Frankly, I’m a bit torn about it. On the one hand, it’ll be good to see everyone, since I usually only fly home once a year (plus exceptional events like weddings, etc…), and I do love me a white Christmas. On the other hand, living on the West Coast for eight years has turned me into a huge wimp, and I can’t take Ottawa winters anymore. So, I guess I’ll be doing what I do every year: stay indoors as much as possible, get cozy with space heaters, and admire all that beautiful snow from where it’s warm. And if I have to venture outside, bundle the hell up.

Just for fun, let’s see what the weather in Vancouver was like today, shall we? A high of 9ºC, which is a bit above seasonal; low well above freezing, so no lovely frost in the morning (it usually dips just below freezing at night); reasonably sunny (though with nasty dark clouds piling around the North Shore mountains); not much wind and no rain at all, which to be fair is unusual for this time of year. There was just one half-hearted snowfall a couple of weeks ago, but the flakes melted as they hit the ground. I wore shorts to finish the last of my Christmas shopping. It got a bit nippy after the sun went down, but it was totally worth it just so I can brag to my family that I wore shorts the day before the winter solstice, while they huddled together for warmth in the frozen wastelands of the Ottawa Valley and Montreal Island, peering out at the polar bears walking by. Heh.

(Just kidding about the polar bears. They wouldn’t last five minutes against the roaming herds of carnivorous penguins.)