Three big snows in November so far – how unusual for Beijing! Well, one thing is for sure, the kids are happy about it. In fact, they want more, more, more of the snowy white stuff. Last night, in their own attempt to force snow on the capital, my two boys were busily searching the internet for “how to make it snow.”

Seeding clouds and the Beijing government aside, it seems that there are other methods to try to get the snow to fall. In pursuit of another snow day and no school(!), the first method they tried was the Snow Dance. For this activity, they shredded white pieces of paper, took them into their rooms, cranked up some rock music (Welcome to the Jungle and Back in Black in their case) and jumped up and down throwing the snow until they get tired. There is also required attire for this activity which is to wear your pajamas turned inside out. I enjoyed their performance immensely, but I don’t think they appreciated it when I jokingly mentioned that perhaps the snow that this is supposed to make is more of the pretend paper kind and that maybe the joke was on them.

Fortunately, my wisecrack did not diminish their enthusiasm (the goal was another day of NO SCHOOL after all), so they moved on to the last part of the Snow Dance: picking up the small pieces of paper -- an unexpected bonus for parents -- and stuffing them inside their pillowcases underneath the pillow. They then continued on with the next “snow making” activity. This one involved the freezer downstairs. I heard some loud noise coming from the vicinity of the kitchen and went down to find out what was going on. Apparently one of the activities is to scream as loud as you can into the freezer, “SNOW!” Well, it may be a little strange, but what the heck I thought… it couldn’t hurt, and I guess I may as well get into the spirit of things. I tilted my head in too for a good yell, while thinking that maybe everyone could use a good scream now and then. “Well, that should about do it. Hopefully there will be snow tomorrow,” I was saying by that point.

But wait, there’s more, my kids informed me. Ice cubes needed to be flushed down the toilet AND put under the pillow. As for ice cubes under the pillow, I suggested that that may not be the best or most effective method. They surprisingly agreed, but were quick to point out that there is an alternative, and that is to put a spoon under your pillow. What a spoon has to do with snow, we never did figure out. But no matter, although school was not cancelled, there was lots of snow, glorious snow, falling by the time the kids walked to the bus stop in the morning!