You climb a little ways further. Your feet are so cold you’re struggling to walk straight. When you look up, the wind slices your cheeks; a furious blizzard of stark white snow clouds your vision. You’re just a few steps away. Squeezing your eyes shut tightly against the wind, you trudge even further; your muscles are frozen, aching with the pain of each step, just a few more to go. You curl your arms around yourself; your heavy jacket is thin against the bitter cold. You flick your hood up in vain–it does nothing. Now the cold seems to delve further into your skin, striking your very bone. With a last final attempt to reach the top, you heave one foot up onto the ledge, struggling to keep your hands in your pockets, where they can at least have a layer of warmth…however feeble that warmth may be.

Now you stop.

As you look on, you see nothing but the same dreary sheet of grey snow you’ve been facing your entire journey. Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, you turn. Suddenly the blizzard behind you seems to disappear, the roaring winds flapping against your coat have silenced. Even the piercing cold seems have withered away. As you look on, you find yourself staring onto the intricately woven patterns etched into the icy plains of the North. The ice is thick; it gleams with the red-orange shimmer of the sunrise just beyond it.

You eyes wander even further. The sky is illuminated with bright pinks and purples, as if it has been set on fire. Everything disappears, as you take in the unprecedented beauty of the scene. It takes your breath away. A minute passes and still, you stare on incredulously, your heart is burning with a strange sense of longing. You want to join that picture. You want to be a part of it. Standing rigidly still, you realize that it is moments like these that make Christmas…Christmas. It’s not the gifts or the food, or the candy–it’s the magic hanging in the air–a magic so coated with fantasy, that it’s almost tangible to your fingers.

In a second, the sun seems to erupt, and just beyond the horizon a fiery spew of light floods onto your face. You embrace it. In this moment, with a crushing sense of relief you realize there is nothing to disturb you, or rip you from your reverie. It is just you and the everlasting beauty of nature….