Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Our Soggy, Soggy Christmas

Oregonians have some kind of aversion to umbrellas. Ironic considering the annual rainfall amount. We all seem to fear that if caught under an umbrella we'll be scoffed at and labeled "out-of-towners." The funny thing is that that's probably a logical fear. Somehow, at some point in time it became part of the Oregonian culture (especially northern Oregon) to brave wind, rain and sleet with nothing but a haphazard hood; and do it proudly without complaint. No matter the weather, it never occurs to me to grab an umbrella; in fact, here's a confession: I don't own one. I live in Salem, Oregon where we get an average of 150 days of rain a year and I don't even own an umbrella.

It's been exceptionally wet here lately and it has left us with nothing to do but go on with life as though it weren't raining miserably at all. We kept waiting for a "dry" day (and by this we never even meant "dry" in the literal sense, we just meant not deafening downpours) to do things like hang Christmas lights and visit the Christmas display at the zoo. "Dry" has yet to come, so we did what any good Oregonian would do and we hung our Christmas lights in a sideways downpour. Elias, clad in rain boots and a ski jacket, came with us. Yes, I let my son play outside during a rainstorm. Yes, he wound up face first in the gutter and came up sputtering with a smile, "Wawa!" (we're currently praying against parasites, or anything else he may have contracted from a face-full of gutter water). Yes, I questioned my parenting choice multiple times during our soggy escapade, but he was thrilled to puddle stomp and completely oblivious to the cold. Wise or poor choice, I'm still not sure, but I do know that there's no avoiding having rain as a Christmas tradition along with our tree and Christmas lights as long as we call Salem "home."

Side note: As I write this, my television is flashing images of a tornado that just hit about 30 miles from my house. I was in no way exaggerating when I said our weather has been insane lately! A tornado in Oregon...who knew?

1 comment:

  1. Side note 2: We braved the rain, yet again and visited Zoo Lights at the Oregon Zoo. While standing in line for the "Choo choo" my brother, in an act of selfless uncle-hood opened an umbrella to hold over Elias. "Whoa, that's a big umbrella," came from a boy behind us in line. "Welp, they're not from Oregon!" was his father's reply.

    I rest my case.

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