No Snowmen This Year in Hannibal? What Gives?

This week, we celebrated the first day of spring, which coincides with Snowman Burning Day.

While I certainly welcome the start of spring, I'm a bit resentful we have passed another winter without the opportunity to build a snowman. Snowmen, snow forts and snowball fights are the payoffs we get for enduring winter in the frigid midwest, but in the last several years, there's been no return on our investment.

Our kindly neighbors gave my 9-year-old a snowman kit. It has a darling, floppy felt hat, a scarf, wooden eyes and cute carved carrot nose. There's just one thing missing: the snow!

Where has all the snow gone? I remember the winter where a kid who spent the night at our house was stranded there for a week because we were snowbound. Good times! Unless you're the parent shut-in with nine kids, of course. Yes we could spend hours outside, but there's nothing quite like the mess nine kids wearing nine layers can make.

As a responsible adult, I should be glad I haven't had to drive to work in a snow storm. The kid in me wants a good old-fashioned blizzard, and as a mom I want that for my kids too. Is it global warming? An abberant weather pattern? Maybe it's just my nostalgia talking, but I'm rooting for Mother Nature to start spring with a bang by bringing back the snow, just this once!