Snow! Snoooow!

DAY SIX OF HOLLMANN HOLIDAY EXTRAVAGANZA:

Ladies and gentlemen. Friday night, I was in...a snowball fight.

Maybe you don't know the power that statement has for me. I grew up in South Florida, where the last snowfall was in 1977, when my parents were high school and I...I was not yet a thought. The furthest north I've gone is Tennessee, in the middle of August. I spent Christmas in Georgia one year, and the sight of a frozen mud puddle was novel enough to have my attention for what felt like a half an hour. The only snow I've seen is the production design in movies. There was hail once at my elementary school, but it took me a while to realize it.

So me? In a snowball fight? A rarity indeed.

Ok, so it wasn't exactly snow. My school threw a Winter Wonderland carnival, transporting in something like 200 tons of ice or something. The ice was blown through this ice blower operated by a man standing atop a diesel truck. At first, he blew directly into the crowd; this was abandoned when it was realized that firing ice cannonballs into people's faces was probably not the best idea. Anyway, there was a nice field of slush right in the middle of the lawn, and we're a bunch of young adults, so what do you think happened?

After getting hit in the head and thigh, I responded by lobbing a few at one guy's chest, another's knee, and someone else's shoulder. The adrenaline rush! The badassery I felt! Holding that freezing cold ice in my hand as I packed it into a ball, winding up, throwing it the way Dad taught me instead of the way I usually did! Just watching people do it was a thrill, but to actually participate? It was everything Calvin and Hobbes promised it would be.

And they promised a lot

Eventually, we were ordered to stop throwing snowballs due to injuries. Actually, I did wind up seeing a guy holding a towel to his face with a puddle of the deepest red blood around his feet. Then we tried building a snowman, to no success at all. Then...oh my God, then the magic happened. The guy running the ice blower finally pointed the thing straight up into the air and...

Only imagine that's me instead of Winona Ryder. Ah, actually, just imagine it's Winona Ryder. She's prettier. Man, I totally thought I was going to marry her when I was a kid. I still say she deserved the Oscar for The Age of Innocence. Anna Paquin was good and all, but Noni...sigh...

Christmas magic? You bet your boots it was. I won't soon be forgetting that night, the night my school gave us...a winter wonderland:

Sleigh bells ring, are you listening
In the lane, snow is glistening
A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight
Walkin' in a winter wonderland

Gone away is the bluebird
Here to stay is a new bird
He sings a love song as we go along
Walkin' in a winter wonderland

In the meadow we can build a snowman
Then pretend that he is Parson Brown
He'll say are you married
We'll so no man,
But you can do the job when you're in town

Later on we'll conspire 
As we dream by the fire
To face unafraid
The plans that we made
Walkin' in a winter wonderland