It’s never been this friggin cold over Christmas in my memory! With temperatures dropping to -28c and windchill to -40c, it would have been a good holiday to stay cosey by the fire with a warm drink, but we didn’t. We spent a lot of time outdoors and the cold granted us a few lessons. It taught us, among many other things, these five little holiday lessons.
Lesson 1: when it’s really cold, the crowds stay indoors, leaving you lots of room to enjoy places like “Patinage en Forët.”
It was Christmas Eve and it was almost as if we owned the skating trail, all 3km of it! Only a handful of others braved the cold to be on the circuit.
We lapped the circuit several times, loving the sensation of skating in amongst the trees, smelling the pine, hearing the crunch of skate blades on ice, and the sound of the wind through the tree branches–which randomly released clouds of snow on us.
We had enough crowd-free space to attempt skate dancing and backward skating! We returned to the cabin with lots of snow on our bums and knees—proof of our not so perfect ice skating prowess!
Lesson 2: when it is “Too Cold To Snow,” it can! It was -21c in Gatineau Park on Christmas Day, and with windchill it felt like -38c! I have often heard that, when it is this cold, it is too cold to for heavy snow–and generally the statement has held true for me, but not on this Christmas holiday.
Just how cold was it?
- Crisp?
- Brisk?
- Raw?
- Hard?
- Biting?
- Bleak?
It was all of the above and more…
Lesson 3: if you defy the cold, Nature will reward you with Its breath-taking gifts!
Lesson 4: when it’s really cold, acts of play and of love are all that warmer!
Lesson 5: family is the depth, the stength, and the reason this cold Christmas Holiday was the warmest and best one ever!
