christmas and the weather

[furcalchick]

with christmas just a few days away, i want to take the time to rant about the weather, specifically christmas weather. every year around this time, i see all the christmas specials and the christmas ads and everyone on the news talking about how essential snow and extremely cold weather is to the christmas holiday. this year, it seems more essential as most of the country is in a cold snap. speaking from just about the only part of the us that has yet to experience heavy jacket weather (south florida), i say it's time to have a warm christmas image.

we're always told about how we're supposed to bundle up before going outside in the harsh cold and winter weather tips during this christmas season, and how not turning on the heat and instead bundling up at the fireplace is nice and even romantic. for us down here, it feels like summer, in fact the other day, the a/c was on. why do i need to buy sweaters and winter coats half off at the mall if i'll only use them for 2 days this year? how about half off t-shirts and sandals?

every time they talk on the news about an ice storm or winter weather, the news explains as if it was universal to everyone and that it was almost always a local story. when we get a hurricane, it's sometimes treated as a story from far away (granted, the effects are worse), but it's just something that's been bugging me, is new england treated as the de facto weather measuring point for the country? is new england seen as the place to have the most authentic old fashioned christmas? why?

i'm asking for a few things in the future: less snow based christmas ads. let's instead have some christmas on the beach commercials and actually have short sleeve clothing on sale. i would love to see a special where everyone is wearing summer clothing and getting into the spirit without the cold weather. snow doesn't make christmas. and it's always the same thing, by february, people are sick of the cold and coming down here to be warm, while right now, we are seen as the odd ball as the cold romance comes into the rest of the country.

that's the end of my rant. thoughts?

 

[Much Ado]

Herbal tea and a nice bath?

 

[MacNut]

It is snowing again and it feels like xmas with all the lights covered in snow.

 

[Fiveos22]

Here are my thoughts:

1) I take it you've never lived anywhere north of the mason-dixon line?

2) Here in Chicago we have four seasons. A little further north and you start losing seasons such that summer is almost non-existant. Its not just New England thing...rather I'd argue that its the majority of the US. A year or two ago I was driving overnight through North Dakota and the car thermometer read -19 F...and that was technically before "Winter". Florida and Southern California are more the exceptions than the rule per the rest of the US.

3) Keep things in perspective...which is hard to do when you see Big 10 students on "spring break" in March wearing only shorts and bikinis in places where the locals are wearing "heavy jackets". Everything is relative.

 

[MacNut]

I don't think I could ever have Christmas in a warm climate. It would just feel wrong.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

I don't think I could ever have Christmas in a warm climate. It would just feel wrong.

you get use to it. I been outside in shorts and T-Shirt on christmas morning. Other years very bundled up but that is when you say welcome to Texas. It will do both in the same year.

Or like now here in Dallas. Yesterday I had a short sleeve shirt on and it got into the 70s and tonight it will be in the 20's and then by Christmas back to the 70's

 

[GoCubsGo]

I don't know about you, but I live by the beach in Southern California. While it is not snowing and we only had a couple of days of decent rain, it is still quite cold, 37º and the likes in the mornings. I have associates in Jacksonville who are also chilly, not freezing snow weather, but chilly all the same.

The image of Christmas since the dawn of time has been cold. Often the drinks associated with Christmas are indeed warm drinks; cider and hot coco. Stories also include images of warm fires and lots of baked goods. Two things you wouldn't want to do in the summer of course. So where was the gauge for these images? My guess is just the stores, the North Pole ... quite cold so I hear. Santa comes from said Pole and he is always big and cuddly and all bundled.

Now you have a request, you want to see a warm image of Christmas. Out here marketing does actually show such image. They're in Corona beer commercials. The palm tree with the lights on it (like a Christmas tree), and the beach scene.

But honestly, people tend to associate the holiday with cold and that'll never really change in my opinion or at least in my lifetime. I wouldn't want it to either. I happen to like the association and I'm quite content even though I reside in a part of the country where I can wear sandals and shorts most of the year.

 

[0098386]

I don't care if its warm or cold, so long as it isn't raining.

 

[furcalchick]

Here are my thoughts:

1) I take it you've never lived anywhere north of the mason-dixon line?

2) Here in Chicago we have four seasons. A little further north and you start losing seasons such that summer is almost non-existant. Its not just New England thing...rather I'd argue that its the majority of the US. A year or two ago I was driving overnight through North Dakota and the car thermometer read -19 F...and that was technically before "Winter". Florida and Southern California are more the exceptions than the rule per the rest of the US.

3) Keep things in perspective...which is hard to do when you see Big 10 students on "spring break" in March wearing only shorts and bikinis in places where the locals are wearing "heavy jackets". Everything is relative.

on 1, i lived north of the mason-dixon line (chicago for 3 years, the last winter i was there it was the blizzard of 1994), but i lived in socal and south florida for the last decade.

on 3, where i went to college, the beach was a place to skip class, and many students actually went up to the mountains for spring break to enjoy some cold weather as the beach was always there when spring break was over.

I don't think I could ever have Christmas in a warm climate. It would just feel wrong.

i have a little bit of that feeling that i'm missing out, but i think that's partly due to the image of a dreamy white christmas that gets repeated. i just wish there was at least locally, less of a feeling of missing out if it was warm and that the stores wouldn't fill their florida stores with coats that won't be bought because it almost never gets cold enough to wear them. but to be honest, i actually like the cold associations with christmas, it's just when it's forced fed in warm areas is when i get sick of it, but then again, in a month or so, we get to gloat when many of the same people are sick of the cold and we're warm.

I don't know about you, but I live by the beach in Southern California. While it is not snowing and we only had a couple of days of decent rain, it is still quite cold, 37º and the likes in the mornings. I have associates in Jacksonville who are also chilly, not freezing snow weather, but chilly all the same.

if the temperature dips down below 50 at any time at all, it's a big story in the local news unlike in southern california. the locals were in panic mode when it got near freezing last year.

i mostly brought this up to have an open forum to talk about the weather during christmas time, and mostly just a bit annoyed about local (not national) interjections of snow and the cold when it hasn't snowed in south florida in centuries.

 

[Jaffa Cake]

It's been bloody cold here. Not Alaska or Canada cold I grant you, nor is there Siberian nippiness either, but it's bloody cold none the less.

The past few days in fairness have been a bit milder, but I still had my little hat on yesterday.

 

[Chundles]

Christmas is in the middle of summer here.

 

[Galley]

On my first Christmas in South Carolina after 24 years in North Dakota I got a sunburn hiking. It was a beautiful thing!

 

[yg17]

As a snow-hating Jew turned Atheist, I think you goy as we would call you can take your white Christmas and shove it


But yeah, freezing cold in St. Louis today. I'm not sure if we ever even got out of the single digits. I just know I was out running errands all afternoon and I think I want to marry my car's heated seats. My ass have never felt so warm and comfy in such cold weather.