Winter Reads

Every year at about this time I reread the same book to get into the holiday spirit: American Gods. Weird choice, right? I suppose it could be A Christmas Carol, or I could reread How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but neither of them involve zombie wives and computer gods and the word fuck. And Neil Gaiman's description of snow is so much more better than Dickens'.

Gaiman's:

Snow, thought Shadow, in the passenger seat, sipping his hot chocolate. Huge, dizzying, clumps and clusters of snow falling through the air, patches of white against an iron-gray sky, snow that touches your tongue with cold and winter, that kisses your face its hesitant touch before freezing you to death. Twelve cotton candy inches of snow, creating a fairy-tale world, making everything unrecognizably beautiful...

Dickens':

The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon the ground.

I'm not knocking A Christmas Carol; I watch the Patrick Stewart version of it every year. Like Shadow in American Gods, though, I am hoping for snow. I want it. It completes the holiday season. It means scarves and hot chocolate and rock salt. It means I have no risk of seeing butt crack since everyone is covered up; even though I risk a traffic accident while driving in it. That makes snow my favorite inclement weather and American Gods my favorite winter read.