You Pinspire Me
Some years, the snow doesn’t start flying until sometime into January, but on years such as this we find ourselves in a Winter Wonderland well before ‘winter’ has officially gotten under way. There are a few of us who are absolutely thrilled with the arrival of snow, but by and large, early snow seems to be met with a general feeling of ‘bah humbug!’ – especially after the ‘Polar Vortex’ that we found ourselves stuck in for so long last winter. If you follow me on any channel of social media, you’ll have already heard my not-so-creative rant: If you can’t handle the heat, Get Out of the Kitchen! In other words, MOVE AWAY FROM SOUTHERN ONTARIO! SNOW HAPPENS, PEOPLE! GET OVER IT!
You’ll be happy to hear that I’m not going to elaborate on that line of thinking this morning. What I will talk about, however, is how early snow is actually really good for local economy – and all you people who tell me to ‘buy local’ should really get behind early snow. No, I don’t have actual numbers to back it up, but I learned first hand how important early snow can be for small businesses with bills to pay.
I spent four years in High School working part time at Ira Lee’s (The Healthier Side of Fast Food) in the Quinte Mall in Belleville (Sadly, Ira Lee’s no longer exists). Four springs watching the warm yellow sun and birds arrive through the skylights in the mall. Four summers of sweating in the back of the store scrubbing dishes. Four falls picking chicken meat off the bones, making egg salad sandwiches, pouring scalding soup on my hand and pretending that it didn’t hurt like hell while serving long lineups during the lunch rush. Four Christmas seasons of waiting for the mall fill with shoppers OR being packed with eager beavers, depending on the weather.
I had absolutely no clue how much the weather affected peoples’ shopping patterns before I started working at the mall. If the first Saturday in December was a chilly, grey, & rainy day, the halls would be almost empty. Who wants to leave their house on a day like that? Who feels like going Christmas shopping? Not many, I’ll tell you that. On years that the snow stayed away and lawns were muddy & weather was rainy, or when it was SO COLD outside that you could snap blades of grass in half, the shoppers stayed away until the 10 days leading up to Christmas. Now, I got paid whether the customers came or stayed away, but there were certainly no extra shifts to pick up, and Peter, the owner and my boss, was noticeably stressed out (and thereby {not surprisingly!} cranky) by the low numbers on the till at the end of every shift. The story was the same in every other store in the mall. The seasonal staff hired for the non-existent Christmas Rush had shift after shift canceled and those of us who were working would wander around on our breaks trying to figure out if someone, anyone, had a busy rush that night at all.
I had no idea that small business owners (who depend on the Christmas sales to take them through the slow winter months) watched the forecast like the folks at a Ski Hill. The moment that white stuff began to fall, people found their ‘Christmas Spirit’ and drove to the nearest retail centre. If the city looked like a snow globe, the malls were packed. People were shopping, people were eating out, people were keeping us busy and our bosses in business. All the staff in the mall were ecstatic on a snowy day – while we couldn’t be out tobogganing with our friends, at the very least the hours of the day were speeding by instead of slowly dragging their feet. Peter was cheerful, he’d pay for our lunch at break, we’d all pick up extra shifts through the week to handle the extra rush. I thought that snow would make people want to stay home, but it has to get pretty bad before the snow overtakes the Christmas shopping spirit!
I haven’t even gotten into the hundreds of folks who do contract snow clearing throughout the winter…. Early snow may be a pain in your ass, but think about all of the people who will be able to have a happier Christmas because they’re not worrying about all of the bills due on January 1st.
{Post Script}
I, of all people, will be the first to tell you that Christmas is not about STUFF. It’s not about shopping, it’s not about buying, it’s not even about giving. Christmas is the season where we spend time quietly reflecting, waiting, remember, and rejoicing about the birth of Christ. However, the reality is that December is a very important month, fiscally, for so many small businesses and contractors.
Jenn vanOosten
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I read a study somewhere too that said years with lots of rain and little or no snow actually deplete soil of nutrients much faster, which of course is bad for farmers. 🙂 So you can add farms and water reservoir health to the list too.
In fact, snow has often been called “the poor farmer’s fertilizer”!