Winter is almost here, and the holiday season is well underway. What wintertime goodie is my personal favorite, you ask? That fresh piney smell? Eggnog? Not even close.

Of course, the answer is skiing. What could be greater than speeding down a mountain over (hopefully) smooth, fresh, powdery snow? Absolutely nothing, I tell you.

However, my favorite winter pastime is stunted by our lack of serious ski breaks. Winter break is practically ruled out due to family travel and college applications. Semester break is only an extra day. One day! Not nearly enough time to indulge in the pleasures of Tahoe. President’s Day weekend gives me a full four days, but with travel time that’s still only going to end up being three days of skiing. It isn’t until February, which is too far away.

I myself think it’s odd that I am so into skiing. A self-proclaimed summer person, how do I belong in the snow? One of my secrets is that I bundle up like no other, but there’s more to it than that. When I ski I feel like I’m flying down the mountain. I don’t lose focus like I do in a lot of other activities. Take homework, for example. After five minutes of solid work, the smallest things distract me. "Oh there could be mail in the mailbox," I may think to myself, and immediately jump up. On the slope, I’m in my own little zone, concerned only with trekking down the mountain.

I don’t plan on forsaking my beloved skiing for the increasingly popular sport of snowboarding. I love the speed with which I glide downhill. You snowboarders claim you are so good, but whenever I go up with snowboarders I find myself waiting, and waiting, and waiting for them at the bottom of the hill. I am anxious to go back up, but my slow and clumsy snowboard buddies impede my return to the mountain’s peak. Sure, snowboarder’s tricks look 10 times more awesome, but I still get air over little jumps. Also, I fear going down the mountain facing up toward the mountain. I want to see down, where I’m going. It’s very important to me.

One thing I must complain about though, is how klutzy I feel falling on skis. Ski accidents always look less graceful than snowboarding accident. When I take a solid fall on skis, I am all over the place: my hat is 20 feet up the hill from me, on top of my first ski, which is sticking straight out of the snow. The other ski is solidly wedged under a mound of fresh powder, and my foot is still firmly attached in its binding. My poles, if not wrapped around my wrists (which they never are), are buried by now. If I managed to retain one, then I’m probably using it as a pick to crawl back up to the first ski. The snowboarder who collided with me has by now rolled over and pushed himself back up, and is most likely the person on the ski lift shaking snow off his board off onto me, and chuckling as my snow-covered self tries to recover my various ski items.

Speaking of ski lifts, they can be thoroughly entertaining. Shaking snow off of one’s skis or board onto people riding below is really kind of funny. Sometimes, it’s important to leave the poor little people alone, especially if they are navigating a difficult run (double-black riders should be left alone).

Another ski lift activity is singing loudly. My personal favorite ski lift song is the butchered version of the song "Mommy’s going to buy me a mockingbird" in the movie "Dumb and Dumber." The lyrics go, "Mock, yeah, ing, yeah, bird, yeah, yeah, yeah," and work exceedingly well if one person sings the words and another echoes with the yeah’s. Yeah, yeah, I know I’m really mature.

Despite my messy accidents, I love to ski. If Santa visits me, the only thing I want from him is permission to leave my college applications and travel to Tahoe.