It was the year of 2004. I was only seven. Over our Christmas break, there were some weather forecasts predicting snow in south Texas, which included my hometown of Port Lavaca. On the night of Christmas Eve, I was talking on the phone with my gram while looking out the window. I was telling her that I wished my mom would let me go outside and play in the snow. My mom said from the other room, "it's not snowing!" I tilted the phone away from my mouth and asked casually, "then why is there white stuff on the ground?" After that, we were outside with the neighbor kids having a snowball fight, which lasted until after midnight. This was the first time I've ever seen snow in my life.

The next morning, we woke up to a winter wonderland. The yard, trees, plants, cars, roads, driveways, ditches, outside furniture, and literally everything else was blanketed in snow. I didn't even care about opening my gifts under the tree, all I wanted to do was play in the snow. My parents said I had to open gifts before we could go play outside. I opened them rather quickly, got excited over them, and then was ready to go outside. I was wearing my Powerpuff Girls nightgown, some slippers, and someone's big jacket. I ran outside and wanted to go stand in the yard, and the snow was at least ankle deep. My mom yelled at me to get out of the yard since I didn't have pants on. We drove around to see our town looking like a winter wonderland. Even the beach looked amazing! It has been known as the Christmas Miracle ever since.

It's funny that it snowed in a location that rarely gets below 30 degrees in the winter. National Weather Service states that the last record breaking snowfall was in February of 1895 with 4.3 inches on Valentines Day in Corpus Christi. The only other time there was snowfall in Corpus was during Christmas on 1918, but there was only 0.1 inches of snow. During the 2004 white Christmas, Corpus received 2.3 inches on Christmas Eve and 2.5 inches on Christmas Day. Of course, depth varied for different counties in the region. This white Christmas was the first known one for Victoria, which received a total of 12.5 inches. The snowfall happened due to an arctic airmass coming from the north and a strong upward disturbance from the Gulf of Mexico. This PDF from the National Weather Service shows the snowfall total for each town in the region. My hometown received 8.0 inches of snow.

I'll never forget how we all played in the snow together as a family. I wished that the snow would've stayed longer than three days. My first (and only, so far) white Christmas has been the highlight of my childhood. I hope to see another one in my lifetime. Of course, us Texans wrote books and took many photos to remember the event. We Southerners get really excited when we see snow... if only we could just learn how to drive in it.