Dimon Kendrick-Holmes: Not quite a white Christmas

This year, my family was going to have a white Christmas, no doubt about it.

It was a slam dunk.

Our plan was hatched on Labor Day, after I'd distributed about a thousand pounds of pine bark on some trails in my back yard. I hadn't been able to find my work gloves so I'd just used my bare hands.

When I'd finished, I was drenched in sweat, flecked with bits of wood and itching from the swarm of microscopic insects that had jumped off the pine bark.

I called my brother, who lives in New York City but usually spends Christmas at his cabin in the Adirondacks. He was bringing his family down here in December to celebrate my parents' 50th anniversary. Instead, I proposed, why didn't we all go up to the Adirondacks for the holidays?

He loved the idea. My parents loved the idea. And most of all, my own family loved the idea.

About eight years ago, before my brother got his cabin, we'd spent Christmas with his family in New York City and it was unseasonably warm. We'd worn shorts and even gone swimming.

No way that would happen again. And besides, we'd be hundreds of miles north in what my brother assured me would be a winter wonderland.

Lake Pleasant would be frozen solid, and we'd skate and play hockey and go ice fishing. On Oak Mountain, we'd go skiing and tubing and snowboarding -- whatever we wanted to try.

We were pumped. And then Bess had another great idea.

Since we were driving all the way up to New York, our family might as well go to Canada, too. We settled on Montreal, which on average gets about two feet of snow in December.

That got us even more excited, but also made us think twice about driving up there. We planned to leave our van in Albany and take a train to Montreal.

Then we spent all fall getting ready.

We got passports and booked our train tickets.

Bess and the kids shopped for boots. I went into the garage and found the Matterhorns I wore in Germany with the Army. They were still caked with mud from Hohenfels Training Area.

On Cyber Monday, we went online and bought down jackets and Gore-Tex gloves and wool socks and caps.

A couple of weeks later, I went back online and got everybody a pair of snow pants from a Wal-Mart in Wisconsin.

Finally, we loaded the van and headed to New York.

The rest is history.

On our way up, we passed through flurries at the Pennsylvania-New York border. From the train, across the lake from Vermont, we could see snow in the shadows of birch and cedar trees. In Montreal, the temperature climbed above freezing but we managed a "wintry mix" of rain and snow.

We had an enjoyable Christmas in the Adirondacks, with fine food and fellowship and some beautiful scenery.

But nothing was white, and nobody was going to be walking on water. You know, because it was 60 degrees outside.

When we got home, Bess gathered up the snow pants, still wrapped in plastic, and sent them back. But we also made a pledge: before our passports expire, we'll try the whole thing over again.

It was a solid plan, and there's no way Christmas in upper North America will ever be that warm again.

No way.

Dimon Kendrick-Holmes, executive editor, dkholmes@ledger-enquirer.com

This story was originally published January 1, 2016 at 9:29 PM with the headline "Dimon Kendrick-Holmes: Not quite a white Christmas ."