It’s a dream of many to wake up to a snowy Christmas morning, at least for those living in the northern hemisphere where it’s the winter season. In fact, it’s a common theme in many modern Christmas songs to have snow associated with Christmas just like evergreen trees, holly, and mistletoe are displayed in many homes. I remember as a child growing up in southeast Kansas that it was something I also looked forward to seeing.As an adult, I’ve learned that snow, while fun to play in and enjoy the beauty of its crystals gleaming in the sun, can also be a bit of a hazard for drivers and the paint jobs on cars, but I’m not one of those who abhor any presence of snow; in fact, I was just thinking that it’s been around six years since I went snow skiing, and my church’s singles group is going to Mammoth in northern California at the end of February, so I might have to make that a priority.
I’m not sure when, if at any time, the Orange County area in California has ever had a white Christmas, but I was awakened last night by heavy gusts of wind blowing around my hotel in Foothill Ranch. After a period of time praying that no open flames were exposed to the winds (it would be awful to remember Christmas 2007 as the start of another series of California wildfires), I finally fell back to sleep, and when I woke up Christmas morning, I looked out my window upon the Courtyard’s pool and found that rather than white snow on the ground, we got a covering of brown dirt! In the picture above, you can see the pool’s bottom, where not covered by pool furniture, almost completely covered in dirt.
Since it was a bit chilly, and everyone had other things planned for Christmas Day, getting in the pool wasn’t that big a priority for the guests staying at Marriott’s Courtyard in Foothill Ranch, so the staff didn’t plan on cleaning it until the next day. It wasn’t too long ago that the pool had been drained and cleaned to get rid of all the ash that the area wildfires had deposited there.
