OK, who kidnapped winter and is holding it for ransom?

Sure, there have been a few cold days, and I mean a few cold days. During Christmas weekend, I wore T-shirts. Many folks I know wore shorts that weekend.

I dreamed of a white Christmas. The nearest I got to having a white Christmas was seeing cotton left in the fields after harvesting. I did not want a lot of snow — just enough to make a decent batch of snow cream. I had all the ingredients required, except snow.

Come on winter; show up so I can enjoy several things.

Winter is the time for soups and stews. Pumpkin soup should be eaten when it’s just above freezing outside. It’s just not the same when eaten during January and it’s 65 degrees outdoors. Venison stew tastes best when it’s 30 degrees outside, snowing and with brisk north wind blowing. As tasty as venison stew is, it loses some of its appeal when eaten when the temperature is 50 degrees, the sun is shining and there’s not a breeze ruffling what leaves are left on the trees.

With apologies to the area’s electricity providers, I’d like to see snow storm followed by an ice storm followed by a snow storm so we would have excellent conditions for riding sleds, toboggans and cafeteria trays down hills covered with snow and ice. It’s hard to do that when the only white stuff covering those hills are cotton that escaped being hauled to the cotton gin and litter.

I prefer riding a toboggan down an icy hill covered with snow. The ice on the hill is needed so the toboggan works properly. The snow on the hill is needed to soften the blow when I fall off the toboggan.

If I had a fireplace at my domicile, I’d be chopping wood every day to make sure I had firewood to burn every night during winter. OK, I’d buy firewood chopped by someone else, but I would warm my feet and the rest of me by a crackling fire every night.

I’d also pop popcorn over that crackling fire a couple of times a week. Yes, popping popcorn over a fire is labor intensive, but it’s much more fun doing that than popping popcorn in a microwave.

I fear the art of popping popcorn over a fire is becoming a lost art.

There’s going to be an NFL playoff game in Green Bay, Wis., this weekend between the city’s Packers and the New York Giants. If that game is played without snow blowing around and below-freezing temperatures, it will be an insult to true NFL fans. Everybody knows that playoff games in Green Bay require snow and that “frozen tundra.” It’s in the NFL rulebook, I think.

OK, winter, it’s time to show up and do your job — make us beg for the warmer days of July and August.

Mike Voss covers the city of Washington for the Washington Daily News. He’s got a new toboggan he wants to try out. Not the kind of toboggan you ride down an icy slope, but the kind of toboggan worn on one’s head.