Just what did Irving Berlin think he was doing when he wrote about that cussed white stuff?
Anyone in Medway faced with another dose of the seasonal deposits would argue that, far from dreaming romantically about the pleasures of a white Christmas, they should be having nightmares.
I can remember one Christmas lunch when it snowed. That was about 1955. There was another in 1962 which hung around for weeks, and left some of us marooned in the Cotswolds until February.
Oh, for the other Christmases, grey, drear, dry, or chilled sunny days with watery-thin sunsets.
As for the sleigh bells echoing across the snow? - there were milkmen delighting to wake us. Today it is more likely to be someone cursing as a large deposit silently descends on their heads as they walk past an overgrowing tree.
Irv was all for scrawling greetings on Christmas cards. Most of us leave it to our wives to send out the seasonal greetings. We're either washing and polishing the car (most Christmases), slurping a 9am sherry or (this year) digging out the car, clearing the windscreens and risking legal threats from neighbours who have slipped on the pavement so thoughtfully cleared yesterday.
Berlin might have suggested one's days should be merry and bright, but that was before the banks played with our cash, and politicians frantically tried to dig them (and the nations) out of the dark vertiginous pits of malodorous material they left.
May all your Christmases be white? Not if this weekend you are planning to drive to visit far-flung family members to deliver Christmas presents in your Vauxhall Sleigh or Ford Troika.
Anyway, not to worry, I was told the other day the council has a couple of thousand tons (or if you prefer to be politically accurate, tonnes) of road salt deposited in a secret dump as well as the topped-up heap that forms their official dump.
For those facing more mayhem, a few things are needed: one is for the gritting lorries to spread the salt a little thicker… another is for key residential roads (aka rat runs) to be opened up so that more people can get to work.
Another is for the bus companies to think about their customers like they did in the past when they were owned by the community, and remember the roads they use are the first to be gritted.
All that is now needed if for Bing Crosby (OK - Bryn Terfel if you prefer) to sing that seasoned song in its 2010 version:
I'm hating all that white snow stuff
With all those shovels full of grit
May your cars avoid being hit
And may all your Christmases be bright.
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