Christmas in Texas

Technically, we were home for Christmas, but in the weeks leading up to it we were still very much in the Lone Star State. The experience was strange, but it only recently occurred to me that the only way I can convey how strange was to first explain what normal was to me. Growing up in Chicagoland, watching movies and TV shows about Christmas, it never occurred to me that Christmas might look different anywhere else, because what I saw on the screen was close to what I saw out my window. I mean, as kid it was obvious that people celebrating Christmas all over the country, and Hawaii was going to look just as lush and warm as it always looks, but the rest of the country would have snow, right? It's obvious to me now, as it's been obvious to anyone growing up in the southwest(or just the south, for that matter) that my version of Christmas isn't what everyone gets.

As much as I hate to admit it, my idea of Christmas actually starts around Halloween. No disrespect to Thanksgiving! And until this trip, I would have argued vehemently that Christmas doesn't start until after Thanksgiving, and I would have been wrong.

When Halloween hits, the air outside is cold. The sun sets early, and when it does the wind becomes unfriendly. The smell of dead leaves in the air smells like a fire that's been doused with water and the wind has a nip in it that makes your nose cold and a little runny. It's a bit too much to wear a scarf and gloves, but you're definitely going to want to put a jacket on. You do other things to warm up. Physical activity is one way; people are still outside playing various sports, even if they can easily see their breath. You have a fire outside, either to burn leaves(like we're told we aren't supposed to), get rid of junk wood or just because you want to warm up. Or, in typical Chicago fashion, you get in your car quickly to go to work and run the heat. If you have to walk somewhere, you keep your hands in your pockets to keep them from feeling a little numb. I could say that the nights are around the mid 40's, but that simply lacks the visceral understanding of what autumn means in Lake County and the fact is that I now know what I think of as fall weather is the dead of winter in central Texas. The cold weather starts in October and doesn't let up until March or April and it's the first reminder of winter.

The first snowfall happens usually in November, but Chicago weather is a fickle beast and may throw down a half inch in October just to be obstinate. It doesn't tend to stick until November, though, and in some winters each snowfall may just add to what fell before throughout the season, until you find the roads are perfectly framed by six foot walls of snow on each side. Generally speaking, winter hits and there is about a foot of snow on average to walk through. Christmas, then, is the sight of strings of lights on a canvas of white, between snow-topped evergreens and bare black trees outlined in patches of white. The need to wear gloves, a hat, scarf and snow boots to walk outside doesn't bother you, because the sight of the lights in that setting is beautiful. Until you realize that your toes are starting to go numb and you get your butt inside to thaw out in front of a fire, space heater or heated blanket with two hands wrapped around a warm beverage. Words like "Wind Chill" are frequently accompanied by numbers in the negative, and every Chicagoan has at least one existential crisis a week throughout the season, usually to the tune of "Why am I not living somewhere warm?"

To grow up with minor variations of this general experience year after year for more than 20 years(that I can actually remember) and to find myself standing in the back of an AutoZone in San Antonio, Texas wearing a t-shirt and jeans, looking out the front window and seeing lush greenery across the street when over the PA the familiar jingle of "Santa Claus is Coming To Town" comes on... more than a few things strike me as out of place in that context. To be fair, we were told that the weather we experienced there was unseasonably warm for the area that time of year. However, if I were to experience that same weather in Illinois during the last few weeks of September, it would pass for unseasonably warm there. And yet there was Christmas music playing...

This wasn't the only surreal Christmas experience we had while staying in Texas, this was just the first. During our stay in San Antonio we drove through neighborhoods decorated with lights, strung up in their palm trees. We also made our first visit to a Six Flags park during Holiday in the Park, which is to Christmas what Fright Fest is to Halloween. Six Flags Fiesta Texas(the one in San Antonio) had plenty of decorations up, and in spite of the climate couldn't do without some amount of "snow". At the conclusion to their tree-lighting show, machines spat out clumps of soap bubbles into the streets, meant to imitate snow falling. Locals were in awe and couldn't take enough pictures or videos and I simply rushed inside with my hand over my "hot" cocoa, thinking how awful it would taste should any of the soap bubbles land in it.


Austin was the location of another one of our out of place experiences for the season, but compared to the others it felt positively normal in the moment, and only odd when looking at it in context. We found ourselves kayaking in the Colorado River, near Zilker Park. The river banks are covered with plantlife and occupied by birds and turtles, providing a view that we're accustomed to seeing at nature preserves... at least until we turn a corner and find the Austin skyline looming over us. My last kayaking experience prior to that was in July, in northern Indiana and the weather was pretty much the same. The experience had little to do with Christmas, however, but not for lack of trying. Zilker Park was host to a Trail of Lights event that we were hoping to see if not for the fact that the perfectly valid parking spot we found for the day was not allowed for the evening, and it was not clear to us where we could park for the event, so we conceded defeat and left.

A few days later we found ourselves at the original Six Flags park, Six Flags Over Texas, which definitely brought back the odd feeling. The Christmas decorations occupying the same space as lush greenery was starting to seem normal to us at this point as we had been in Texas for over a week. What caught us off guard here was the presence of a small sled hill in the park. For what it was, it was decently managed. There were three lanes to sled down and a steady supply of sleds in various sizes to suit virtually any of the park guests. The only problem was that the snow that they had for this was more akin to snowcones than what you'd find on an actual hillside in early winter in the Midwest. It was more of ice, and the sledding lanes were just that: well worn out grooves walled with solid ice. Sami was giddy for the experience and I was looking forward to the novelty of it. For me, it was more along the lines of travelling to another country to see what passes for American food than it was "I'm going sledding in warm weather!" When they say "Everything is bigger in Texas" they don't mean the sled hills.


After nearly two weeks in Texas, the weather felt less surreal to us. A lot of the trees in the Dallas area had lost all of their leaves, so at a glance it looked like winter without snow, or at least the middle of fall. Which brings us to one of final activities in the area. We visited Dark Hour, a year-round haunted house. Now, if you've been around either me or Sami at all during the fall, you learn pretty quickly how much we love Halloween. It's easily our favorite holiday, and we love finding a good haunted house, which around us is only open during the month of October. To find a haunted house that was open in December was exciting, but to find one that was open and had a Christmas theme was unthinkable. A major part of that theme was the European Christmas figure, Krampus(which is an actual part of the tradition and not just a monster thought up to sell a horror movie). I won't provide a detailed review of the haunt here, but it suffices to say that we are disappointed that we can't have similar experiences near Chicago at this time of year.

Personally, I could get used to a winter without snow in a climate that's accustomed to milder weather, but I think a part of me is always going to long for at least one good dusting in the winter.