Our First Snow

My family moved from Ghana to Minnesota in October. My children had never seen snow. They didn't believe me when I told them about it. "Ice falling from the sky?" my daughter said. "Like a freezer?"

On the morning of December third, I woke them up early and opened the curtains. The whole world was white. The trees, the cars, the street. Big soft flakes were falling slowly.

They screamed. They ran outside in their pajamas and bare feet before I could stop them, then ran right back in, shrieking at the cold. We put on every warm thing we owned: three sweaters each, borrowed boots, mittens from a neighbor.

Our neighbor, a retired man named Gary, came over and taught them to make snow angels. Then he taught them to build a snowman. They gave it a scarf in the colors of the Ghanaian flag.

That night my son said, "Ghana is home. But snow is magic." We drank hot cocoa and watched it fall until bedtime.