‘Twas a White Christmas After All

Nebraska’s unpredictable weather comes through again.
White Christmas Fog
Stepping out into nowhere…

We’ve been conditioned to believe that, upon waking up on Christmas morning, we’ll be greeted by the sight of new-fallen snow — that a winter wonderland will be waiting for us outside our window. (And if you don’t see snow, then maybe your Christmas isn’t as Christmas-y as it could be.) So imagine my surprise when my son came into our room this morning announcing he’d heard thunder.

We were, in fact, getting a nice Christmas morning thunderstorm. Which sort of made sense, because I live in Nebraska, home of unpredictable weather. It’s not uncommon to have warm 50-degree days in the middle of February with a foot of snow on the ground, or to get a massive snowstorm right when you’re expecting April showers.

As such, I wasn’t terribly disappointed because hey, that’s Nebraska weather for you. But Nebraska’s unpredictable weather still had something else up its sleeve. As we drove to my in-laws’ house in the afternoon, the entire countryside was blanketed by thick fog. So thick, in fact, that it felt like we were all alone on the highway, that no other cars existed in this strange ghost-land through which we were currently passing. (It’s probably no surprise to you that dreary, chilly, fog-filled days are my favorite kind of weather.)

As we drove past the town of Wahoo, we also passed by Lake Wanahoo, a large reservoir containing hundreds of drowned trees. The trees always look cool as their dead, bare branches poke above the water, but they looked especially fascinating suspended in the fog. After some short discussion, Renae and I decided we had to pull over and take a few photos, including the one above.

As it turned out, we got a white Christmas this year after all. It wasn’t the white Christmas we were maybe hoping for — i.e., the sort of white Christmas you see on TV — but it was a distinctly Nebraskan white Christmas… and I don’t think I’d have had it any other way.

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