Sledding

Ever since I was a little girl, one of my favorite things about winter has been sledding. Nearly every Christmas vacation that I can remember has included sledding. When I was small, we slid down the hill in the heifer corral behind our trailer house and down the monster snowpiles that my dad created when he cleaned the driveway with the farmhand. When I was Ms. Crazy Preschooler’s age, we drove across the lake that my parents’ farm sits on to a different pasture that had a bigger hill. We’d scoot right down the hill onto the ice on the lake. When I was in upper elementary school, my dad would attach three sleds to the back of the fourwheeler and pull my cousins, brother and I all around the lake. We’d fly up over snowdrifts on the ice and sail through the air. We’d spin in circles. And when I was in high school, there were several times when a group of teenagers from school would venture 10 or so miles north of town to “the gulches” looking for the biggest hill we could find, usually complete with enormous rocks and several cliff like dropoffs. It was extreme sport sledding at its best, and only once did anyone ever even dislocate a shoulder (he was very brave about it, too). In college I came home and went downhill sledding nearly every winter with my cousins, and when I got married, I dragged my husband along a few times too, I think.

So, I was thrilled when we got six or seven inches of snow last Friday! I was worried I might miss a Christmas without sledding. I ran to Target and bought my husband a sled for his Christmas present. (He’d been wanting a certain one for a bit). On Christmas Eve we bundled everybody up and found a gently sloping hill (we have preschoolers to think about). Destructoman was particularly thrilled to ride down on the inflatable round sled, and Ms. Crazy Preschooler bravely tried any combination of sled.