The birds dashed across the sky as the sun beams flickered through their feathers. It was a warm winter day following the record-breaking high on Christmas. The inflatable snowman with blue shades waved in the yard near a cardboard cutout of Rudolf tanning in a beach chair. The glittery scarf wearing reindeer across the street kept their heads towards the ground.
Instead of hoping for snow this year, we poked fun at the sun. We brought some craft sand inside and made a Christmas village display at the beach. The blue bead tides and candy cane eating shark toys sat on our mantle as we added photos of our faces to the scene. When we went to the actual beach, the lifeguard stand was decorated with Christmas lights and wreaths painted on extra lifesavers.
There were a few Christmas photo shoots going on near the shore. Some of them were funny photos with rolled up pant leg Santas standing near their Mrs. Claus or elf counterparts. The other half were serious families with large color coordinated outfits that would go in hanging frames or generational photo books. We just took selfie photos of our sandmen (or Sandmounds) and patted them into a mountain of shells and sticks before we left. We talked about who had the best one and “if they became magical, like Frosty”. Would it be called Sandy?
We had our gingerbread men, hot chocolate, and Christmas feast food with the option of chocolate popsicles late at night when the humid heat kept us awake. We could go outside late in the evening and listen to crickets chirp while we set up a picnic blanket. There wasn’t any sunlight in our eyes and lanterns kept at a distance set up a calm mood. We could sit or lie down or play a card game. Our far out friends and family gave us beach bags and totes stuffed with gifts when their ugly sweaters went out of season (It was really useful when you could take a nap on your own while the games quieted down).
The nights after Christmas were filled with oscillating fans and leftover chocolate popsicles. At one point, we planned an indoor snowball fight with fake cotton snowballs and blankets to hide behind. The second we started throwing, the heat had already won the battle. All of us were spread out on the floor like leftover snow angels.
New Year’s heat kept us inside after we were drained by the constant loss of sweat and the fireworks popping in the middle of the night. We watched the ball drop and blew bubbles with whatever air was left in us to save for the mess of confetti and fireworks. I thought of eating twelve ice cubes under the table for the celebration, but I feel like I would be the only one to choke. We decided it was safe to drink at least twelve glasses of water tomorrow. To keep it fun, the person who drank less than twelve glasses of water had to get pelted with the cotton snowballs. Everybody started on their first glass after that.
Although we couldn’t bring winter wonderland to us we still had a blast and made some memories that couldn’t be outdone. Some days gave us moments to rest and the others let us have some fun. When life got busy again, we thought of some ideas for another heatwave holiday.
What are some of yours?
Photo by Alexey Demidov on Unsplash
