I have always been glad that the bulk of my childhood was spent in a place and time that had real winters.
I haven’t lived anywhere like that since 1989, although there have been something like half a dozen visits to Virginia and occasional snow in the last 30 years.
It doesn’t snow here in Georgia very often. At least where we live, an hour south of Atlanta, we’ve gotten snow no more than 5-6 times in the 10 years we’ve been here and never more than an inch or two when we do.
The above photo is from one of our first winters here, and it’s more snow than we got in 20 winters in Los Angeles. I guess I was spoiled by my four winters in Colorado and Nevada during the late ’80s. I can remember a few storms that left us with 15-20 inches of snow on the ground.
There were still some wonderful winters in California, especially in the five years around the millennium when I was writing a newspaper column. I met so many interesting people and had some amazing opportunities to help people in need at Christmastime.
One friend, Sally Street Jenkins, shared some amazing insights about the holiday in 1996.
“I used to think Christmas decorating was a bother,” she told me. “I’d see the decorations up at Thanksgiving and it would annoy me. Now that I’ve got kids, the decorations are up the day after Halloween and I love it.”
Her favorite thing about the season is the way people treat each other.
They’re nicer, she says.
“It’s like we have permission to be the best we can be as human beings. The Christmas season is a perfect opportunity to reinforce our values of goodwill and to take care of each other.”
Even when it comes to volunteering at their kids’ schools, December is when they get the most help.
“Christmas is the time of year that we spend the most time paying attention to the good things about life,” Sally said.
It was the following year that gave me a truly wondrous experience.
I received a letter from a woman whose family — two parents and three children — found themselves homeless. Their lives had fallen apart in Texas when the husband was hit by a bus and couldn’t work for a while. They had their utilities turned off and were then evicted. They packed everything in their car and moved to California.
The husband was an electrician, but the best he could get was off-book work that paid him $50 in cash every day.
That was enough for a family of five to pay $40 a night for a room in a cheap motel. The other $10 went for food.
Leaving them with no way to get ahead.
In her letter, she said someone had told her I sometimes was able to find help at Christmastime.
“We have never been like this before,” she wrote. “I was the one who always gave money for the needy back in Texas. The kids are real understanding, but I know they have hunger pains. I just cry at night.”
So I wrote about them and my readers responded like troupers. Within 48 hours of the story running, I received 75 calls from people offering money, food, used furniture or clothing. One family said they would love to share Christmas dinner with them in their home.
At least five different apartment complexes offered them free security deposits and/or rent. One of the apartment complexes offered them six months free rent while they rebuilt their finances. Several called with better job offers for the husband.
This happened 23 years ago, but as I write this, I have tears in my eyes for what my readers did.
I got a nice letter from the wife.
“We want to thank you for all the hard work you did for us,” she wrote. “You are our angel. I know you are just doing your job, but believe me, you are doing more than that. My kids would not have a Christmas without you, and we would not have a lot of stuff without you. Thank you, Mike.”
I made her letter part of the column, but I felt I needed to say a little more to my readers.
“It was a nice note, but she got one thing wrong. It wasn’t me. You people deserve all the credit for the help this family got.
“You folks are the greatest.”
And that and other experiences like it taught me that you don’t need snow. You don’t need decorations. You don’t even need tinsel or pine trees to have a wonderful Christmas.
There’s really just one thing that makes Christmas wonderful.
Yep. All you need is love.