Pastel Snow ... and White Christmas

I am craving seeing the snow. In Southern California it exists, of course, but you have to drive to the mountains for a couple of hours. It will happen but until then ...

This is a pastel I did of Massachusetts this year. I thought the shallow layer of snow would be a challenge but it was actually pretty fun! Of course, the early evening light helped.

Near Cambridge 2010 pastel on LaCarte

I have always loved Christmas carols and as a kid I can't count the times I turned my birthday into a caroling party. Our little street was mostly elderly people and they loved when all the kids would come to the door to sing.

One lady, who I adored and had many visits with, lived in what looked like the cottage of the seven dwarves. Her name was Beth Brown, and she'd tell me stories of traveling and teaching in Japan after the World War II. Mrs. Brown, who'd been widowed since before I ever knew her, would invite us all in and ask us to sing from the stairs that lead to her tiny a-framed loft. Every year she would request White Christmas. And every year she would cry, smiling through her tears.

As a child I wondered what made her cry. I wondered if it was the song, the singing children or that she missed her husband. For me, singing from the stairs in her cottage is one of the most vivid Christmastime memories I have from my childhood. I still miss her and sometimes when I hear White Christmas, I cry.

"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

With every Christmas card I write

May your days be merry and bright

And may all your Christmases be white."

~ Irving Berlin