It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Solstice

It was cold the other day. Not bone-chilling, teeth-chattering, skull-numbing cold. As a matter of fact, it was just a bit below what my mother would call "sweater weather." Out here in the wilds of urban California, what that meant was that I saw a number of drivers out at the curb with their garden hoses, pouring water on their front and back windshields to promote the condensation of the moisture that had been, ever so briefly, frost. I live in a land without ice scrapers and snow brushes.
By the time I reached school, there were a few kids there. They were the ones who were taking advantage of the slippery surface of the mat below our play structure. They took turns racing halfway across, then sliding until their sneakers caught some of the less-icy rubber beneath and they tumbled to the ground. These brave souls were soon joined by brothers and sisters and friends until every inch of frost had been worn off by the friction of twenty-some kids hurtling back and forth, suddenly bringing to mind the frozen pond in the beginning of "A Charlie Brown Christmas." Then, just as suddenly, it returned to the familiar fractal of our students at play.
They were energized by the coming holiday, or at least the coming vacation. I have learned over the years not to lean to heavily on any particular connection to any kid and any holiday. Even if their particular belief system doesn't allow for the recognition or celebration of certain special days, every kid celebrates two weeks off school. The Winter Assembly skewed heavily to the secular version of Christmas, with a sprinkling of Kwanza. Then the rains came and winter had truly arrived.