In December, everything seems to come in piles. You know, piles of Christmas cards in the mailbox, piles of presents under the tree, piles of cookies and other baked goods on the kitchen counter. And here in the Frozen Tundra of Minnesota, snow piles up, too. This fall we have piles like I’ve never seen before in the 13 years that I’ve lived here.

 It’s not officially winter yet, but the snow piles are already mountains. We’ve had two snow storms (12 inches each), an ice storm, a blizzard (23 inches last Saturday) plus 8 or 10 inches more just this morning. 

Thankfully, it has warmed up considerably (30 degrees!) so the kids can play outside. Here they are playing in the front yard on the pile of snow that my husband has created simply by clearing off the driveway.

In most places, the pile is taller than my 8-year-old and runs the entire length of the driveway on both sides.

I took this photo as a reference for my Oklahoma friends and family. That’s an Eskimo Joe’s cup sitting in my driveway. I think Stan Clark would be proud, don’t you?

The deep snow in the yard is a little challenging to wade through, but my little Minnesota girls plow right into it anyway.

The other thing that really tends to pile up around this time is laundry. Oh, all the layers we have to wear makes for double or triple the usual amount of dirty clothes! I better go switch another load!