Kooklabell

Oh the snow forts we use to make and the snowball fights! Sledding and ice skating on the lake. We spent all our time outside. Mom kicked us out of the house until dinner time. LOL Back then I could play next to the road and no one worried I would be run over or kidnapped! We rode our bikes everywhere. Even my husband who grew up in Greenwich Village played outside! They strung up a volley ball net across the street, made skateboards from roller skate wheels and veggie creates and rode their bikes all over too. Everyone knew who we were and where we were. If I did something wrong, my mom would know about it by the time I got home! BTW I grew up in the 60's. Oh, now I'm remembering going skating until our toes felt like they would fall off from the cold. We'd go home an our mom had a fire going and would sit us in front of it to warm up and have a treat - hot chocolate with marshmallow fluff on top.. mmmmm

Back then a village was raising the children. Mom's didn't tell other moms, and teachers, to mind their own business. They all worked together to raise us with respect and compassion.

But, as you noted before I started ranting.... winter was a wonderful time of year to play in the snow.

jbj137

I live in the sunny South (upstate SC) and we did not get much
snow, so when it came we made the best of it with the neighbor
kids.

Skiing down a long hill in an open field with whatever we
could find that would slide.

It did not usually last very long, maybe a day or 2.

zennia

Good for you. I bet you and grandchildren had fun. Whenever I see my grandchildren they have some electronic in their hands.
We never came in the house in the winter no matter how cold it was outside. We always had fun building forts, snowball wars, making angels etc. Todays kids really don't know what fun is.

decky

My kids use to go to the big hill and slide all day. The dog went with them as he loved to slide also the only trouble was he wouldn't get off the sled, kids would have to pull him up. When they got older they decided the big hill wasn't so big after all but they sure had fun.

Pat in MN

quiltingcandy

One thing I remember growing up in Kansas during the winter, 1956 - 1961, my dad would not pull us on the sled behind the car. We thought he was the meanest man in town. Other kids did it, and they even got to ride in the back of pick-ups! We never did it, because we knew what would happen if we got caught. But we did drag our sled down to the church which was just a block away and sled down the hill behind the church. It kept us busy for hours. When I went back as an adult and saw the hill, I was amazed how low it was - it was so much bigger when I was 5.

And one winter when I was 6, I was walking to school and somehow ended up walking by myself do decided to take a short cut thru an alley. Long story short, there was a deep drift and I was stuck up to my arm pits and couldn't get out. The lady of the house came to my rescue. I was devastated not for being tuck but because we would pick her flowers that grew thru her chain link fence in the spring and summer. She had wonderful flower gardens that even as children we admired.

willferg

Where I grew up they called that "hickey bobbing."

omacookie

South Louisiana almost never had snow but in the Summer we played out doors making Mud Cakes, swinging, playing tag as well as hide and go seek .Almost every one had a 2 wheel bike or pair of steel skates. We went inside when the street lights came on! Bath time was next then bed.......

SewExtremeSeams

I remember my Dad helping us to build a snow elephant one year in our front yard. My Mom went out at night after we had gone to bed and sprayed it with red food coloring mixed in water in an old weed sprayer. The next day someone called the newspaper and had a reporter come out for a photo shoot of our pink elephant! The next day they ran an article with the photo... even though it was black and white you could imagine how it looked. So sad when it finally got warm enough for our elephant to melt.

Battle Axe

When Dad would bale the barley straw, we could make forts out of the bales.

Marcia

Yooper32

I remember my older three putting on all the outerwear they could carry, slogging off through waist-high drifts, out to the beaver dam carrying shovels and a spud. Hours later, home soggy and weary but all excited about tomorrow when they could go out and skate as they had shoveled tons of snow off the ice, spudded it to flood so it would be smooth skating. Nine times out of ten, the next day, they got up to find a not so nice 10" or more new snow fall. It didn't discourage them for long though, as when they did luck out and it didn't snow, they had great skating parties with a bonfire and hot chocolate in thermoses.