# Christmas shopping at 40 below! HO, HO, HO! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 21, 2008, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158 "2008-12-21T04:41:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158/1 "2008-12-21T04:41:53Z")
Well, not _real_ 40 below. Only 24 below, with wind chill taking it to 40 below. Finally found the time to do the last gift shopping, plus Mrs. Piper sent me out to forage for the last foodstuffs needed for Christmas. So, out to the Big Box territory at the east of Regina, where the winds blow in from the Prairies to cut to your marrow, and the grey clouds and the blowing snow turn the sun into a faint glowing dot, low in the sky even at noon. Running from big box to big box, huddled against the wind, “if your eyes you’d close/then the lashes froze/'til sometimes you couldn’t see.” And the freezing headache from the wind hitting the forehead, barely alleviated by the winter version of the Tilley hat, with its fold-down forehead and ear flaps. But, the list is done! everything is crossed off! back to the shelter of chez Piper, with no plans to venture out into the cold yet again. Now it’s just fun stuff like Christmas baking and wrapping the presents. ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158/2 "2008-12-21T04:47:40Z")
Brrrr! You can keep that to yourself. I’ve just been doing some Christmas shopping, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, on a balmy 25 degree Sunday afternoon. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158/3 "2008-12-21T05:06:50Z")
Yeah, it was a bit brisk here too. Only -11C before the wind chill. I went up to see my dad in the nursing home, and got there just in time to wheel him down to see Santa. 🙂 25C in shorts, and December Christmas shopping? That’s just …wrong. Half the fun in Christmas shopping is conquering the elements, which is why Canadians have so many interconnected climate-controlled multi-block spaghetti-tunnelied city areas. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158/4 "2008-12-21T06:43:34Z")
Yeah, we’re feeling your pain, **Piper**. We ended up shopping today even though our Christmas shopping is done just to get some exercise out of the cold (-38ºC here with the windchill). Come on chinook, already! (We had a very tasty ice cream cone at the mall, too. People looked at us funny.) ---
**Author:** ![Satellite\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Satellite\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satellite_Guy)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158/5 "2008-12-21T09:52:01Z")
Well, for the record, right now (2:49AM, Sunday morning) it’s -35C, with no wind, and therefore no winchill. Sunday night, it’s supposed to drop to -38C. S^G ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158/6 "2008-12-21T14:53:50Z")
We were out yesterday as well. Don’t know what the wind chill was, but the car thermometer read -29 and there was wind, so it felt colder. Got the last of the Christmas gifts; today’s errand will be to the supermarket for the food. The car has been plugged in all night, so it should start without a problem. My sister lived in Australia for a number of years. Good Canadian girl that she is, she never got used to hot, unsnowy Christmases. As much as I’d like a chinook about now, I don’t think I’d want to celebrate Christmas in a perpetual one. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![GingerOfTheNorth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cdc98d/32.png) [@GingerOfTheNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GingerOfTheNorth)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158/7 "2008-12-21T15:02:38Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > We were out yesterday as well. Don’t know what the wind chill was, but the car thermometer read -29 and there was wind, so it felt colder. Got the last of the Christmas gifts; today’s errand will be to the supermarket for the food. The car has been plugged in all night, so it should start without a problem. > > My sister lived in Australia for a number of years. Good Canadian girl that she is, she never got used to hot, unsnowy Christmases. As much as I’d like a chinook about now, I don’t think I’d want to celebrate Christmas in a perpetual one. 😃 You’re in Lethbridge now! My parents are now in Barons, and I lived in Fort Macleod for about ten years. I remember a year when I got a shiny red ten-speed bike for Christmas, and I was out riding it that day without a coat. I miss my Chinooks. Winter here (Baltimore) is rain, rain, rain. In late January and early February, we’ll get some sloppy, wet snow. This will cause the locals to freak out, buy all of the milk, bread, and toilet paper in the stores, and schools to be closed. The government offices also go on ‘snow delay’. It’s enough to make a Prairie girl nuts. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158/8 "2008-12-21T15:21:17Z")
Chinooks tend to peter out around Swift Current. The idea of riding a bike on Christmas Day seems wrong, somehow. Unless you’ve made your own bike snow tires by wrapping yellow rope on the tires, as one of my school chums did. 😉 I think we’re in the icebox for the long haul this winter. Current temp, sans windchill: -32 C. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158/9 "2008-12-21T15:34:31Z")
> [@Cunctator](#): > > Brrrr! You can keep that to yourself. I’ve just been doing some Christmas shopping, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, on a balmy 25 degree Sunday afternoon. And I recall you’re gong to spend Christmas at a [beach](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=486811). It just does not compute. No snow? No sub-zero temperatures? No windchill? No concerns whether your car, stuffed with shopping, has turned into a cold iron block in the parking lot, immobile until the weather changes in the New Year? What’s the point unless it’s a struggle with the elements? And then when you make it back home with your hard-won purchases, and you’ve got a warm fire in the fireplace and a vin chaud, and all you have to do is relax as he wind howls? that’s Christmas! Come to the north side of the world for a real Christmas experience, where you fight the elements, not just your fellow shoppers! ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158/10 "2008-12-21T15:51:07Z")
40 below? Fahrenheit or centigrade? ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158/11 "2008-12-21T16:16:02Z")
> [@GingerOfTheNorth](#): > > You’re in Lethbridge now! My parents are now in Barons, and I lived in Fort Macleod for about ten years. I remember a year when I got a shiny red ten-speed bike for Christmas, and I was out riding it that day without a coat. I miss my Chinooks. So do most of the locals. It’s been between -20 and -30 (not including the wind chill) for about ten days now, and the locals admit that spell this cold lasting this long without a chinook is somewhat unusual, especially for December. **Cunctator** , I think you ought to try to make it up here next year, for a Canadian Prairie Christmas. Between the Prairie Dopers, I’m sure we could get you kitted out in all kinds of cold-weather gear and send you out in the weather for gifts and groceries and everything else. (How are your “driving on snowy roads” skills? :)) But finishing everything and enjoying a drink by the fire, as **Northern Piper** notes, is truly Christmas. When can we expect you? ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158/12 "2008-12-21T16:25:17Z")
> [@Q.E.D](#): > > 40 below? Fahrenheit or centigrade? When given as temperature, C. Windchill is F. ---
**Author:** ![KlondikeGeoff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3e96dc/32.png) [@KlondikeGeoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KlondikeGeoff)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158/13 "2008-12-21T19:04:10Z")
> [@Q.E.D](#): > > 40 below? Fahrenheit or centigrade? They are the same at -40 ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158/14 "2008-12-21T20:50:40Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > When given as temperature, C. Windchill is F. All temperatures in Canada are Celsius (C). If there is a windchill given, it is also in C (it could be expressed as heat loss in watts per square metre, but that wouldn’t mean much to us). It is most often given as a “Feels like -XXºC.” [Here’s the current temperature and weather in Calgary.](http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/caab0049) It’s only -21ºC, but the wind is taking it down to -31ºC, so I’m going to wear my longjohns for walking a mile to the store for butter. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158/15 "2008-12-21T20:54:10Z")
> [@GingerOfTheNorth](#): > > \ In late January and early February, we’ll get some sloppy, wet snow. This will cause the locals to freak out, buy all of the milk, bread, and toilet paper in the stores, and schools to be closed. The government offices also go on ‘snow delay’. It’s enough to make a Prairie girl nuts. That always gives me pause when I read about it on these boards - a little snow or a storm, and everyone has to race to the store to stock up? Different strokes for different folks, I guess. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158/16 "2008-12-21T21:20:50Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > And I recall you’re gong to spend Christmas at a [beach](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=486811). Yes. And thankfully the forecasts for Christmas and Boxing Day are reasonably mild at the moment: 24 and 27 respectively. > [@Northern Piper](#): > > No concerns whether your car, stuffed with shopping, has turned into a cold iron block in the parking lot, immobile until the weather changes in the New Year? What’s the point unless it’s a struggle with the elements? Oh, there are concerns and struggles with the the elements. They’re just different ones: coming back to an oven-like car in the carpark. Trying to transport perishable food and hoping you can get it home into the refrigerator before it goes off in the heat. Almost expiring in the humidity in the church’s choir loft at Midnight Mass. Etc. > [@Northern Piper](#): > > And then when you make it back home with your hard-won purchases, and you’ve got a warm fire in the fireplace and a vin chaud, and all you have to do is relax as he wind howls? that’s Christmas! I could say the same thing about last night, relaxing in the garden with a good red, enjoying the twilight of the longest day. ---
**Author:** ![GingerOfTheNorth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cdc98d/32.png) [@GingerOfTheNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GingerOfTheNorth)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158/17 "2008-12-21T21:32:25Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > **Cunctator** , I think you ought to try to make it up here next year, for a Canadian Prairie Christmas. Between the Prairie Dopers, I’m sure we could get you kitted out in all kinds of cold-weather gear and send you out in the weather for gifts and groceries and everything else. (How are your “driving on snowy roads” skills? :)) But finishing everything and enjoying a drink by the fire, as **Northern Piper** notes, is truly Christmas. When can we expect you? I’ll be home next Christmas. Come hell or high water. > [@featherlou](#): > > That always gives me pause when I read about it on these boards - a little snow or a storm, and everyone has to race to the store to stock up? Different strokes for different folks, I guess. 😕 It’s weird, yeah. I just shake my head now, but I was genuinely surprised the first I heard of this. And ‘snow delay’? What? ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158/18 "2008-12-21T21:41:50Z")
> [@KlondikeGeoff](#): > > They are the same at -40 I know; that was the point. ---
**Author:** ![Satellite\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Satellite\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satellite_Guy)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158/19 "2008-12-21T21:48:06Z")
> [@Q.E.D](#): > > I know; that was the point. Once I saw the name (and post count), I started to hear a faint whooshing sound… must be the windchill… ? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![KatieCats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/54ee81/32.png) [@KatieCats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KatieCats)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2008, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158/20 "2008-12-21T21:58:20Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Well, not _real_ 40 below. Only 24 below, with wind chill taking it to 40 below. > > Finally found the time to do the last gift shopping, plus Mrs. Piper sent me out to forage for the last foodstuffs needed for Christmas. So, out to the Big Box territory at the east of Regina, where the winds blow in from the Prairies to cut to your marrow, and the grey clouds and the blowing snow turn the sun into a faint glowing dot, low in the sky even at noon. > > Running from big box to big box, huddled against the wind, “if your eyes you’d close/then the lashes froze/'til sometimes you couldn’t see.” And the freezing headache from the wind hitting the forehead, barely alleviated by the winter version of the Tilley hat, with its fold-down forehead and ear flaps. > > But, the list is done! everything is crossed off! back to the shelter of chez Piper, with no plans to venture out into the cold yet again. Now it’s just fun stuff like Christmas baking and wrapping the presents. You’re braver than I am, **Piper**. I went out to the east side Big Box hell for lunch, and decided it was too cold to even think about Christmas shopping. I came home after lunch and cuddled under a blanket, sipping a cup of tea. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-shopping-at-40-below-ho-ho-ho/478158.md?page=2)