One of my favorite times of the year are the cold days in January.  Today is one of those sunny, cold days I remember as a child.  Mom would spend an hour getting assorted boots, hats, mittens, and warm coats on each of us kids.  She would then send us out the door with, “have fun!”

We would all gleefully run to the winter-wonderland we called the front yard and start to build  a snowman.

  Brother Roger (the oldest) would always take charge and delegate all snowman-making related tasks to the three remaining kids. 2. David, me and little Nancy.  Nancy was no help what so ever.  (She just wanted to play in the snow , catch snowflakes, and make snow angels. 

 Meanwhile, the rest of us would begin rolling the snowballs.  The technique is to roll and pat the snow onto the ball.  (David taught me this.) Then, when the ball of snow got too large for me to push, I would pass it on to my brothers who would keep rolling and patting until it was bigger than any of us!  This was the base of the snowman.

  I was already well on my way rolling the second snowball.  It was placed on top of the base and secured with more snow; packed  tightly around its middle.  The head came last.  Roger, being the tallest, would place the smaller snowball on top.  Next came the decorating!  We would wrap an old blanket around our snowman.  (To keep him warm??)  It worked for us.  Then we would steal rocks from the driveway for the “eyes” and and “mouth”.  Mom would supply us with an old carrot for his “nose”.  One of us would usually give up our stocking hat and place it on our snowman.  Branches off the Pinoak tree would be used for arms.

Then, we would stand back and admire our beautiful creation!  This was a very brief moment of peace.  Ten seconds later….the snowballs would start flying!  (I usually caught the worst of it).  Nothing will chill you faster than a snowball melting down the back of your neck!  Brrrr!

So the fun was over and we would all race back into the house thinking we had been outside for hours and hours.  It was about 35 minutes according to the yellow plastic clock on the kitchen wall.

Mom would warm us all up with rich, homemade hot cocoa and a plate of her warm ginger/molasses cookies. Yummy!  These cookies are rolled in granulated sugar before baking.  This gives them a ”crackled” top and a  wonderful sugar-y crunch! 

So go outside, make some memories and bake some cookies! 

 I’ll post the Ginger/Molasses cookie recipe tomorrow.

Happy snowman making!

Cathy