You kids are lucky. Do you know how many preceding generations wish they had it as good as you? No, we don’t envy your iPods, scores of TV channels, Internet access or palatial malls; what we envy is your white Christmas.

There’s always a risk, of course, that tomorrow won’t be white. But this year we’ll trust the weather person. With all the snow that fell last week and Saturday night, and the cool temperatures predicted for this week, there has to be snow on the ground Christmas morning. Maybe it won’t be the fluffy 10-inches we had on Sunday, but it will be there, and you’ll get to play in it.

In fact, the Whidbey Island Childhood Class of 2008 may be the luckiest ever. Can any oldtimer remember losing three days of school to snow right before Christmas break? It’s the luckiest kids’ weather streak in Pacific Northwest history. Those three tedious, endless, miserable school days before Christmas break were erased by the most delightful weather imaginable. Adults spend too much time complaining about the cold and the driving conditions. Instead they should run outside and jump into a snow drift or try to catch some flakes on their tongues. Hardly any TV news time or newspaper space is given to the pure joy of snow from a kid’s perspective. They’re always looking at the negative.

This won’t be like most Christmases when kids anxiously open presents only to find something useless, like a sled. Zillions of kids in the Puget Sound area have gone to sleep late Christmas Eve dreaming of snowfall and that wooden sled with steel runners they’ve always dreamed of flying down the hill on. Maybe it was freezing Christmas Eve, maybe the weather person has said snow was a possibility, maybe it had even snowed on Christmas Eve and everyone expected a white Christmas. But when that magical morning arrived and we parted the bedroom curtains, all we saw was green and rainwater dripping from the eaves.

Running out into the living room, we’d see a sled-like package barely covered by wrapping paper. We’d feign delight upon opening the sled, knowing it wouldn’t be much fun pushing in down the grassy hill over the steaming cow pies. The woolen mittens and stocking hats were also nice, but turned into useless wet mops after five minutes of sledding in the rain. Back inside the house, the parents would promise us that some day, we’d take the sled to the mountains and have some fun. Does anyone remember that day ever actually arriving? We couldn’t go to the mountains because there was too much snow to get there. We didn’t have chains, and the sawdust traction tires weren’t trusted to get us there. We finally made it up in July, but we never got to bring the sled.

But tomorrow morning, Whidbey Island kids will be finding sleds under the tree that they can actually use. They can run out to the hill behind the house and play all day, or until they’re frozen, whichever comes first. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity around here.

But don’t be surprised if the geezer next door shows up and begs for just one sled-ride down the hill. Give him his chance. After all, he’s been waiting decades for a Christmas like this.