Christmas* isn’t* supposed to be white? 
Two years ago it actually snowed here in the Houston area on the night before christmas. It was only a light dusting but there was still a lot on the ground christmas morning.
It was my only white christmas in my 56 years. Most of which were spent in the Houston area. Kind of a thrill. to us!
Note poster location. I’ve had Christmases all over the world, from the tropics to the arctic. I prefer the white kind.
Solstices begin summer and winter. Autumn starts with an equinox, as does spring.
I lived in Northeast Ohio from birth (1959) to spring 2001, then moved to Indiana. Christmas is less likely to be white in Lafayette than in Cleveland, since I no longer have to worry about the lake effect snow that arrives “courtesy” of Erie.
Like Sternvogel, I’m in central Indiana. I grew up in northeaster Indiana. I’d say that probably 50% or more of my Christmases have been white. Quite often, a snowfall right before Christmas is the only significant one of the whole year.
I’m sure that the South has a lot of cultural advantages, but no chance of white Christmases is a major drawback, for me.
We had a couple in my childhood, here, in Western Washington, but they were usually wimpy.
A couple as an adult, 1968 comes to mind. It began to snow Christmas Eve. It snowed and snowed and snowed. The city was paralyzed. Of course, Seattle is paralyzed by an inch, even today. Snoqualmie made the world record books that year. The record held until the 90s, when Mt Baker took it away.
One in Amarillo, Texas, also wimpy (if you can call wind chills of -40 wimpy)
A few in Missouri, in and around Kansas City.
Nary a one in San Diego.
An almost in Sunnyvale, Ca. I think it snowed the day before and melted, then again the day after.
I believe Bing covered that in Mele Kalikimaka, did he not?
I’ve had many a white Christmas, myself. A couple times, when we were out at my aunt’s, my cousins and I even went sledding.
Come to think of it…No.
Spending most of my Christmases in California or Ecuador, the only two times I was in locations cold enough (once in London, once in NY), it didn’t snow either time.
Can’t say I’ve ever felt like I really missed out on something. Go figure.
When I was young in far southern Illinois and Missouri (very close to Arkansas and Kentucky), white Christmases were known but not especially common. I remember winters there as mainly being cool and sodden wet.
Of course, here in far northern Montana (45 miles south of Canada) white Christmases are by far the norm. Not every year, but more often than not. We also get white Thanksgivings, Halloweens, Easters, and St. Patrick’s Days, depending on the year.
We had a white Thanksgiving in Iowa in 1940. We went out to my uncle’s farm for Armistice Day (screw Veteran’s Day now and forever) which was a Thursday. My folks drove home and I stayed intending to go to town with my uncle on Saturday. The weather was balmy for that time of year, almost “shirtsleeve weather.” The night of Nov. 11 one of the worst blizzards ever hit the upper midwest and we were snowed in for 5 days. Quite a number of people also died in Iowa, livestock was caught out in the open and died. One turkey farm lost 100% of its birds lots of them because they panicked and piled up against a fence suffocating many. The rest froze to death.
My uncle, cousing and I all smoked. I had part of a package of cigarettes, as did my cousin and my uncle had part of a can of pipe tobacco. I want to tell you, it was pretty rough. We were reduced to rolling cigarettes with pipe tobacco and newsprint. And at last, tearing open the butts and salvaging what we could. In the 1940 smoking was real cool, as you can plainly see.
The weather service took a lot of heat for failing to forecast the storm and warn people, although weather forcasting the was primitive. Forecasters were referred to as “weather guessers.”
And
We had a white Thanksgiving.
Hmmm. I see my cite says that the 12th was a Tuesday. That makes it hard for the 11th to have been a Thursday, doesn’t it? Well, I remembered it as Thursday, but I guess I have to stand corrected.
I live in Southern Ontario, mostly yes but lately they have been half and half christmases, which really are the worst kind.
Polls belong in IMHO.
I’ll move this for you.
Cajun Man
for the SDMB
Never.
Being in the southern hemisphere, Christmas falls in the middle of summer. It’s usually a very hot day.
We have BBQ lunch, and if we’re at grandma’s head to the beach after, or if we’re at mum’s to the backyard for a spot of cricket.
The big dilemma is usually whether it will be too hot to eat outside on the balcony, or retreat to the airconditioned comfort of indoors.
Oh, and the tree usually looks very dry and brown by Christmas day.
I grew up in New York, and lived for years in New Jersey, so hell yes.
Not here. Christmas is in summer.
Just about every Christmas was a white Christmas back home in NB, Canada. Since moving to Seattle, however… well, this will be my fourth Christmas here, and I haven’t had a snowy one, yet. There’s been some snow here, first time I’ve seen it since 2003, but I don’t know if it will be here for Christmas. It’s already mostly melted (and the local newstations have finally stopped urging us to “stay inside folks! It’s just not worth it!” As a Canadian, I find the seriousness of these statements HILARIOUS, though still being truthful enough; when it snows here, suddenly not a soul on the road knows how to drive anymore. Cripes).
Yo! I’m one of these spoiled natives who has never seen a snowflake. Hell, only one tree in my whole neighborhood has lost its leaves, which is completely normal to me.
“Let It Snow!” is to me sort of a strange song. I’ve never even had a fireplace or any of that. My Christmases growing up were spent at the beach or at Disney World or somewhere else in shorts and a t-shirt.
I used to experience the occasional white Christmas where I grew up in New [del]Joisey[/del] Jersey. The winter of ’65 hosted one of the great white wonderful Christmases that lives on fondly in the convoluted recesses of my memory engrams.
Since moving to North Florida in 1986:
Total White Christmas Count: One (1)
Snow Accumulation: 0.5”
One white Christmas in 20 years!?! - and what a pathetic excuse for a white Christmas that was, let me tell you. The city, unprepared for a blizzard of such magnitude, completely shut down; all bridges closed, wide spread power outages; panic ensued. Lack of city snow plows and snow tires coupled with tropical drivers lacking the conceptual prowess needed to equate snow with slipperiness resulted in unprecedented numbers of county-wide automobile crashes—it was a bloody, gore-infested Bumper Car arcade ride from hell (all right, perhaps I’m embellishing just a tad). It was kind of fun, however, to watch the young Floridians, never having seen snow before, making tiny little snowmen from the miniscule snow accumulation.
Ah, New Jersey, where fore art thou?
Yes, many times. Most recenlty within the last 4 years. The last Christmas my Dad was alive it snowed hard enough that I had to take the next day off, because I couldn’t drive home. (Dad died 3 years ago today).