DB: Christmas Bliss

A holiday is what you make it, I guess. For me its about gathering and having a good-ole’ time, and in that case, the past few urban Christmases I’ve had were actually pretty rich. As much as I love the rural nature of my family, the feast style country christmas of my youth has failed to re-manifest now that my cousins are grown and pulled to families of their own.

I grew up near the mountains, several of them in fact. So as much snow as we’ve had these past few days is actually kind of nostalgic, even though its far too sticky for the kind of sledding I did as a kid. On Saturday night, word got out that people would be meeting at Puget Sound Pizza, sledding on the steeps of 7th out front and drinking the cold away. Everyone at the Warehouse bundled up and walked down the hill to the tea shop to collect a handful of trailer-park sleds and their riders. After much ado, which was partly due to the duct taping of plastic to the bottom of some heavy duty cardboard boxes, we began the trek through the icy wastes to the haven of pizza, beer and kid style fun.

With warm tea in one hand and a 35ft roll of vinyl upholstery in the other (heavy!), my thoughts were drawn to the surreality of the orange colored sky. How awesome was it that I was walking amidst a pack of sled laden friends on my way to meet with scores more, our evening to be filled with pizza, spirits, exercise, karaoke, and car-less mayhem.

There was something quietly exclusive about the idea that primarily the only people who would end up there were those willing to walk and therefor lived close enough to do so. After what seemed like quite a pilgrimage we finally arrived and I unrolled my package at the top of the hill and yelled, “WHO WANTS TO GO ON A MAGIC CARPET RIDE?”

There weren’t many takers. In my imagination we would have thirty people on that slippery thing and ride it like a sleigh. Once some people got on I ended up having to pull it to make it slide at all, which wasn’t very magical, but it smooshed the snow down in a big wide track which helped the cardboard boxes out considerably … I think.

The rest of the night is kind of a blur of running up hills and singing Rolling Stones songs in between hot-toddies and the wild laughter of my compatriot urban sympathetics. When I got home I was soaked to the bone in sweat snow and warm hearted Christmas bliss. We’ve got it good here, living downtown. I’m excited for the rest of the break. Even with the snow there is little held out of our reach, and truth be told the driving isn’t that difficult if you know what you’re doing, its just not nearly as fun.