White Christmas, 1991

Tonight we rented the 13 going on 30 dvd. Does this movie make anybody else nostalgic for those days when you were who you were... before "peer pressure" or wanting to be "cool" or needing to fit into a clique?

I don't know that I want to go back to eighth grade. 13 is a terrible age, it's the age where you are supposed to suddenly want all of those things the magazines say you want, when the body starts to morph and you start to go crazy from hormones.

Of course it is also the age when some very sweet memories are made.

In eighth grade I knew a boy... I shouldn't mention his name, but the odds of his reading this blog are REALLY small, so to heck with it. In eighth grade I knew a boy named Josh. We had become friends the year before when I first moved to town. We were pretty close, and one day about a week before Christmas Break started he caught up to me in the hallway on our way to Social Studies (this was not hard to do, there were only two lockers between us).

"Hey you never did tell me what you wanted for Christmas," he said, nudging me with his elbow.

"I don't know what I want for Christmas," I said absently, trying to find the day's homework in my Lisa Frank binder.

"You must want something," he said, pulling me out of the way of yet another upperclassman (where the heck did I put that stupid worksheet?)

"Well, it's been a long time since I had a white Christmas," I said. "I'd really like snow this year. I miss it." I said, triumphantly holding up the worksheet and then frowning when I realized I had forgotten to finish half of it (Crap). "You can't really do anything about that, though," I said, "So don't worry about it. You don't actually have to get me anything. Just let me have joint custody of the Troll."

Starting the Christmas before I had given him one of those troll dolls for every gift giving occasion that had popped up, and the latest one had rainbow hair and I almost hadn't wanted to give it to him.

Josh laughed and we slid into our seats. He might have said something else, but at that point I was far too focused on finishing the worksheet before the bell rang.

I completely forgot about the conversation and was surprised when, a couple of days before Christmas, Josh showed up at our front door. Christmas Break had started and we had talked about hanging out, but usually permission was needed from parents. Surprised, I pushed open our screen door.

"Come in, come in!" I said, trying to tug him into our living room and out of the dumping rain. "You're getting soaked!" Josh took a couple of steps into our living room.

"I can't stay long, we just got back from Bend and I wanted to give you your Christmas present." He said, holding out a cooler.

"Our Troll lives in an igloo?" I asked, confused. Josh laughed.

"Just open it" he said.

I opened the lid and my breath caught in my throat. No way.

"You said you wanted a white Christmas," Josh said. I nodded. For quite possibly the first time in my life I was speechless. The small cooler was filled to the brim with Snow. White crunchy sparkly snow. In a rush of 13 year old "this only happens in books" overwhelmedness, I jumped up and hugged him.

"Thank you," I said. Josh, who was not a touchy-feely boy, blushed as red as his hair and backed up.

"Well, ah" he said, clearing his throat "Um, you can bring the cooler to school with you whenever. I'll see you," he said and bolted for his father's truck, which was idling outside.

I kept that snow for years. Years. I put it in ziplock bags so that I could keep it in our freezer and return the cooler to Josh on the first day back at school. When we moved, I took it with us. It lived in our freezer for a very long time.

Over the next couple of years, as we grew up and found different clubs and interests we grew apart. He turned into one of those running jock boys and I despised the friends he made from the Cross Country and Track teams. It made no difference, as I was far too uncool for them anyway. By the end of Sophomore year we had pretty much stopped talking. Our Junior year we traded pictures, out of habit. On the back of mine I wrote, "For Josh. Growing up sucks. Always, Erin" and on the back of his, he wrote "Erin, sometimes people must move on, don't hold on to the past, remember it and let it go, just enjoy the memories. Josh" (It's the exact quote, I still have the picture)

Senior year he sat in front of me in Government, but we didn't really talk. I'd frantically try to read the assigned chapter before class started, he'd talk to his running buddies who sat next to us. One day, completely out of the blue, instead of talking with Scott or David, he turned around.

"Hey did you see Friends last night?" he asked. I assumed he was talking to somebody sitting behind me and continued scribbling out the Current Events assignment we'd been given. "Hey," he said, tapping my paper and scaring the crap out of me, "Did you see Friends?"

"Of course," I said, trying to retrieve my pen from under Scott's chair without tipping my desk. "You watch Friends?" I asked, throwing my weight back the other way as the desk's legs started to leave the floor.

"Duh," he said grabbing my paper as it started to slide off the edge of the desk. The episode the night before had been the one with the Prom Video...also the one where Ross and Rachel finally got together. "It was pretty cool, huh?" He asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I am soooooo glad they got together," Why is he talking to me?

"Me too. I loved Phoebe. 'See? He's her lobster!'"

"Totally," I said. I sighed in an embarassingly girly way. "Must be nice to have a lobster."

"Yeah." Josh replied, bouncing his fist on my textbook a couple of times. "I know." We looked at each other and smiled in that "this is kind of awkward, we haven't talked in forever but we used to have long conversations and now I can't remember how we did that but I miss it" way and then he turned around because the bell had rung and our teacher was taking roll.

After that we'd greet each other, and sometimes make a little small talk before class, but mostly he kept talking to Scott and David and I kept trying to finish my homework on time. After graduation he went to Idaho, I went to California and we e-mailed and wrote a couple of letters, but ultimately drifted forever apart. That's the way it goes sometimes, I guess.

But he will always always be The Boy Who Gave Me Snow For Christmas.