What White Christmas?

I live in the South and spend a lot of time in Florida dedicating my painting time to those familiar images.  Meanwhile, all the latest magazines are arriving full of images of jack-o-lantern pumpkins, roasted turkey dinners and snowy winter scenes.  Stores are full of sparkly Christmas ornaments and brightly lit fir trees.  I adore bright and sparkly, but the White Christmas image escapes me.

There are paths to grandmother's house (as it says in the song) but the paths I know go through pine trees and palmettos.

We have deer, but they don't know about sleighs and tend to be hard to find.

We don't have partridges in pear trees, but we do have ibises in mangrove swamps.

No snowy fir trees, but lots of sunlit cabbage palms and live oaks.

So I relish my familiar sights and live among them.  I have seen one or two white Christmases in years past by travel to colder climates, but these days the only way I expect to see snow at Christmas is in my dreams.