h a l f b a k e r yThe leaning tower of Piezo
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In the UK, a white Christmas is declared if a snowflake
falls on the roof of the Met Office, while in the US there
has to be a snow depth of at least 1" on Christmas
morning. This leaves us with very few white Christmases,
even though snow invariable falls in winter.
If we reverse this process
and declare Christmas
immediately on the onset of snow, we could celebrate
bountiful white Christmases almost every year, with
sledging, snowmen et al on the day (max number of
Christmases: 1 per 12 months, unless rolled over from
previous year).
However, there are other advantages to making
Christmas a moveable holiday; Unproductive 'snow days'
and commuting disruption would be reduced, since
everyone would have the day off anyway, while old-
fashioned snowless Christmases would be just a normal
working day. The element of surprise would make the
yule season more exciting for many, while the problem
of Christmas 'getting earlier every year' and shopping
chaos would be eliminated, with present-buying
vigilantly spread across the year. Fans of Christmas can
also enjoy 'follow the weather' and enjoy festivities in
many different countries throughout the year, while the
explanation of how Father Christmas gets round to all
the houses in the world becomes more credible.
Move Christmas into Feburary
Move_20Christmas_20into_20Feburary
The one thing it seems everyone agrees on is that Christmas is in the wrong place. [Loris, Aug 18 2017]
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Bizarre, yet strangely compelling ... |
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I like the unpredictability of this. Christmas gifts would just
have to be wrapped around Thanksgiving and waiting. |
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Also I note that half of all [TheBamforth]'s ideas are Christmas-
related; obsessive specialism [+]. |
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"Always winter but never Xmas" [+]. |
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// I'm pretty sure things weren't so fragile a few decades ago. // |
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They weren't. They really weren't. And there's a very good reason for that. |
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Consider electricity supplies. 60 years ago, small, local outages were commonplace. Users just muttered a bit, waited for the power to come back, and - if it was dark - lit the candles they kept ready in a cupboard. It was no big deal.
Then some bloke drove to the substation and poked a circuit breaker with a long pole, and the lights came back on. |
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Slowly, the system was automated. Substations could be monitored and controlled from central facilities. Supply and load management improved immeasurably. There were fewer and fewer outages. People bought fewer candles. |
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Today, the system is highly automated, and in many countries, blackouts are rare. There's still the odd lightning strike, or a damaged cable, or transformer fire, of course. |
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When things go wrong progressively, on a large scale, the systems re-route and cross-link and load-shed and hang on and on and on and on ... and then the whole network crashes completely, and has to be painstakingly reconstituted under manual control. |
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So, little blackouts are very rare; when they happen now, they're widespread and long. |
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