On Snowflakes, Paper and Ice

I've been a bit sad this year, because this is the first Christmas in several years that I have not adorned my desk at work with paper snowflakes. Snowflakes, I feel, have been getting a bad rap lately, being used as a term to describe young people who think they are more special than they are. What did snowflakes do to deserve such negative associations?

The tradition of making paper snowflakes is something that comes naturally to children, but for me it  took on another level with home-schooling. My mom got a book from the library, Easy-to-Make Decorative Paper Snowflakes by Brenda Lee Reed. 


Now, some How-To books seem to me to be about things that are a little too self-explanatory. Case in point: Blanket Fort: Growing Up Is Optional by Grackle and Pigeon...somehow it feels like cheating to incorporate tent poles and more "professional" elements to something children customarily figure out themselves using ingenuity, chairs, and clothespins.

But Reed's book did more than provide designs to trace onto paper and cut out. It taught me techniques on how to make my own designs look better. First and foremost it taught me how to fold the paper to get the more realistic six-pointed look, and also gave tips on how to use scissors to get a cleaner cut (instead of pushing your scissors forward through the paper, you pull the paper toward the blades of the scissors).

After using Reed's designs one winter, the next year I expanded my knowledge by creating my own designs. Some worked, some didn't--you'd be surprised how easy it is to make the Legend of Zelda Tri-Force symbol without meaning to, or creating the look of the Transformers logo. But all were stuck on the windows with scotch tape. My sister and I continued this tradition for years, filling all windows in the house so that even when we didn't have a white Christmas it gave the effect of a light snowfall. To get this heavy coverage of our large window-panes requires over 100 snowflakes (depending on the size), so depending on the busyness of the holiday season the heaviness of the precipitation varies from year to year.

At my last job it became a tradition there, as I used recyclable paper to cut out snowflakes and then hung them all around the office area. Many of my coworkers got into the spirit of the tradition as well, contributing their own snowflakes and often getting aggravated when they couldn't remember how to replicate the six-point folding method. I changed jobs a couple years ago just a week before Christmas, leaving behind many friends and a few dozen snowflakes.

Last year at this new job I received a memo saying that employees were allowed to "tastefully" decorate their work area. I jumped at this chance to continue the tradition, making a few miniature snowflakes and taping them up around my phone and computer monitor. But this year I did not receive that memo, and so did not do it. Sure, my sister and I have made a smattering of "home snowflakes," but I still miss the "work snowflakes" that recall fond memories.

All of this retrospection, by the way, was instigated by an Ode recorded in a book I'm reading: The Study of Poetry by Paul Landis.

To a Snowflake - by Francis Thompson

What heart could have thought you? --
Past our devisal
(O filigree petal!)
Fashioned so purely,
Fragilely, surely,
From what Paradisal
Imagineless metal,
Too costly for cost?
Who hammered you, wrought you,
From argentine vapor? --
"God was my shaper.
Passing surmisal,
He hammered, He wrought me,
From curled silver vapor,
To lust of His mind --
Thou could'st not have thought me!
So purely, so palely,
Tinily, surely,
Mightily, frailly,
Insculped and embossed,
With His hammer of wind,
And His graver of frost."