When I was a kid — and how many people hate hearing that from their parents? — I didn’t walk 12 miles to school in a snowstorm, I didn’t wake at 5 a.m. to deliver newspapers, and I certainly didn’t eat tuna casserole because the children in China were starving.

But growing up on City Island in the Bronx, there was nothing more exciting than waking up to a quiet, still morning and sensing that snow had fallen through the night and school would probably be closed that day.

The quiet that settled upon the outdoors was a welcome reprieve from the usual sounds of shouting garbage truck drivers making their morning rounds or neighbors’ cars heating up in driveways. Yes, everything was still for that short, special moment when the day dawned and snow had blanketed the earth.

We would run to the windows and see how much had fallen on a day when my mother usually couldn’t even get us out of bed to ready for school.

The subways weren’t closed, the roads weren’t shut down, and rarely did we panic-shop for bread, batteries, and milk. In my house we would have felt lucky to run out of milk, since it was force-fed to us by the nuns in our Catholic school and we hated it, especially because it was always served warm in those little waxed containers.

Meteorologists, which my husband, the fisherman, pretends to be, have taken the fun out of a surprise snowstorm. C’mon! “Juno, the storm of the century?” Half-hour weather specials pre-empting regular television programming? Snowmageddon? A little much, no?

And since the supposed storm of the century didn’t materialize, politicians are turning it into a political battle, blaming each other for the mistake they made by basically shutting down New York City.

I remember those surprise snow days with such fondness. Before bundling up with layer upon layer of clothing, three pairs of gloves, two pairs of socks, and our heavy winter coats, we would be fed a hearty breakfast, since my mother knew once we went to our snow hill, we wouldn’t be seen again until darkness had settled in or our fingers became numb with frostbite. Kids these days are wimps when it comes to a good snow day. An hour outdoors and they’re freezing their little bums off and crying to go inside, back into the warmth of their homes to play video games.

We always had dogs flying around us, running up and down the hill trying to avoid being hit with a sleigh. On one particularly long day of sledding my friend’s collie, who looked like Lassie but was named Tara from “Gone With the Wind,” disappeared for a while. After we had dinner and she still hadn’t shown up for her own meal, my friend and I went looking for her. We stopped a fuel oil delivery man and asked if he had seen a collie, and being the compassionate man that he was, he said, “That dog’s dead; it was hit by a car up on the avenue.”

Our tears froze when we found her lifeless body. The incident kind of took all the joy out of sledding for us after that.

I only tell this story so people know to keep their dogs in when the plows are around. They drive so fast, and I realize they have to for a strong running start, but any animal that crosses their paths is in jeopardy.

The latest snowfall will probably stick around for a while, and everyone’s favorite sleighing spot will be busy this weekend. So bundle up, my friends. Tether your dogs and let’s be careful out there.

Janis Hewitt is a reporter for The Star.

Because I am a doubting Thomasina, I went to Google to check out a statement in Tony Prohaska’s “The White Fence,” a memoir that was the subject of last week’s “Connections.” Tony reported that Jackson Pollock had a pet crow. The Internet is wonderful; I not only found references to the crow but also saw images of it taken with the artist in 1947. It was named Caw Caw.

I once had a pet rooster. I’m not sure about the pecking order — ha! — in a lineup of crows and roosters, but my pet liked to do what Caw Caw did: sit on my shoulder and follow me around my grandparents’ farm.

We left the farm that summer to spend a month at a nearby farm that took in boarders. I was 11 or 12, and I cried when I wasn’t allowed to keep my rooster. He was put in a big open field with 50 or 100 other birds, and, though I went there every day, he never showed himself. I didn’t eat chicken for a long time.

I got to thinking about that rooster this week after reading a horrendous account in The New York Times of the disregard for the basic health of pigs, cows, and sheep (as well as cruel experimentation on them) by researchers and administrators at a United States Department of Agriculture center in Nebraska. If you haven’t read the story and both care about animals and eat meat, I recommend that you don’t.

I suppose that children who grow up on picture-book farms come to terms early with the fact that most of the animals they see every day are destined for the table. Wilbur the Pig is saved in “Charlotte’s Web,” but that’s just a nice story. A family I know who raised children here always kept a pig or two; the adults made up stories about where the chops for dinner had come from.

Laura Donnelly, The Star’s food and restaurant writer, devoted a column to the production of chickens about a year ago, and I’ve been careful about what poultry I buy ever since. I’m not sure I am disciplined enough to become a vegan or vegetarian, although I think those who don’t eat animals are admirable. I hope something will come of The Times’s exposé about the Department of Agriculture’s misbegotten effort to help the meat industry develop more and more tender meats at lower cost, and if a petition were available demanding that taxpayer dollars be taken away from the department, I would sign it.

The overriding issue, however, is the humanity, and inhumanity, of homo sapiens. Day after day we learn of brutality and killings in the name of God, that red, white, and blue Americans are fighting and killing in the name of democracy and have subjected suspects to tortures in the war against terror. What hope can there be for animals?

“It seems like nothing much has changed,” I said to Mary as we were watching “To Kill a Mockingbird” the other night, though I know it is frequently said in connection with Martin Luther King’s birthday that we have come a long way.

For the young people who pro­tested in cities throughout the country on Jan. 19, and who claim­ed that the import of the holiday was being hijacked, it was not just a day off.

It should be remembered that Dr. King had a challenging vision, to wit, that this country had within it the means and the moral gumption to achieve the society of brotherhood that he said had inspired our early national life.

“The curse of poverty has no justification in our age,” he wrote. But that was in 1967, and, again, nothing much has changed, the insecurity net having broadened its reach now to include not only the poor but a wide swath of the middle class as well.

Those living tenuous lives were in the main addressed in the president’s State of the Union speech the other night, and it was uplifting to hear, echoing, as it did, at least some of what Dr. King had urged, though the president’s vision for America — a fairer America and, consequently, an even more economically vibrant one — took a far back seat to the “no se puede” crowd in the morning’s papers.

“. . . Harumph. A more fair society? Simply can’t afford it, my friend, simply can’t afford it. Free community college, tax credits for education and child care . . . what is the president thinking?”

They said 30 million watched — a Super Bowl-type audience. I hope they keep watching, and listening, in the next two years, because maybe if they do the status quo will change. And while I doubt we’ll ever be a tight-knit family, as the president would have it, we may come to increasingly acknowledge our common humanity and, insofar as this optimistic, inventive nation goes, our common purpose.

From an upstairs window Tuesday, as snow continued to fall fast, I could see a dozen sea ducks riding it out on the bay in front of our house. Seagulls of some sort flew on the driving wind above the water’s edge as a flood tide pushed and clawed at the dune.

The beach is almost dead flat and rocky at this time of year, and the gulls swoop down and pick up any edible thing dug loose from the bottom by the waves. It is one hard way to make a living, though if the cold does not bother them all that much the easy pickings make good sense. On the other hand, the ducks, surf scoters, I believe, have carved out a niche that I find difficult to understand.

Of all the parts of Gardiner’s Bay where they could hole up, our southeastern reach would have to be about the toughest. Rollers propelled by the strong north wind tumble and break above the shallows here. Even in the warm months, there has never been a boat I owned or had anything to do with that did not break loose or drag anchor over the flats.

Watching with an old pair of Navy binoculars, I wondered why the scoters did not find a gentle lee instead. They are sea ducks, however, and to them, the bay may well be a refuge from the day’s ocean turmoil. These birds’ hardiness is something worthy of marvel, an astonishing shell of feathers covering thick down. Their uncovered feet work constantly to keep their beaks pointed in the direction of the oncoming waves.

It appeared that the scotors were not feeding. Rather, they just swam, nearly in place, disappearing and appearing again as the waves came and went underneath them. That they could be doing this for the duration of this stretch of weather is something to think about.

People who live in Florida or anyplace else warm probably think those of us sitting out this blizzard are the crazy ones. And we, warm in the house, look out at the birds and think the same thing.

Even if you’re not a kid, snow days are a welcome respite, not from school but from the getting and spending with which most of us fill our days. It was Tuesday afternoon when I wrote this. As I sat at my computer, which is in a corner of the bedroom, I watched the snow veer horizontally, rising high enough to cover the seat of the swing in the yard and making a graceful mound of the car.

From The Star’s website, I learned that only a few households here had lost power. For everyone save the crews at work on the roads and the volunteers in the emergency services, the big snow provided a chance to stay home, warm and cozy — and cruise Facebook.

On Facebook I was surprised to notice a remark by a friend who had a totally different take on this day off: She said it gave people a chance to do chores they had put off for a long time, like cleaning the basement. Better her than me. There are plenty of tasks I’ve put off, but that’s not my idea of how to bask in a snow day. As far as I’m concerned, a snow day is an excuse to, for once, do just about nothing.

Other Facebook warriors recorded their outdoor adventures — shoveling, taking photographs, digging out their vehicles, even snowshoeing. I felt a bit jealous, but not jealous enough to bundle up and go out. “Take heart,” my husband said. “There are advantages to being a senior citizen, and not being expected to venture out in 18-to-24-inch-deep snow is one of them.”

My niece Janet, out in sunny California, posted photographs of a scene from Golden Gate Park, where calla lilies are blooming and Muscovy ducks paddle about like it was already spring. The Facebook “wall” of Pat Mundus — who has been sailing in far off, tropical waters — featured shots of a visit to Mayan ruins in Belize. Now that’s something I dream about.

Usually, on a non-snow day, I start my morning perusing the woeful headlines of the world in the pages of The New York Times, which has been delivered to our driveway for decades. Today, I took a vacation from the bad news: My copy never made it up our snowbound lane. In snow-day mode, I didn’t even look up the headlines online.

But despite my best efforts to simply daydream, all warm and cozy, Facebook managed to intrude on my peace.

I have “liked” Doctors Without Borders (or have I “friended” the organization? I’m not sure which) and it posted its own version of a snow-shoveling photo today, this one from Lebanon. A Syrian refugee is seen shoveling outside his tent in a makeshift settlement in the Bekaa Valley. “Snow and freezing temperatures are bringing misery to many of the 400,000 Syrians who have taken shelter in substandard conditions in the area. Today, the conflict in Syria is seen as the world’s most grave humanitarian disaster,” the accompanying text read.

Even on a snow day, there is no respite from the problems of the world.

Good grief, Christopher Walsh! Let go of the past, already!

You’ve gone far in a few short years. It wasn’t so long ago that, desperate for any merriment at all, you dragged a sad little Charlie Brown-caliber pine tree up the 75 steps and into your decrepit Brooklyn apartment, decorated it with a handful of dull ornaments and semi-functioning light sets, and . . . and then sat alone reading “The Catcher in the Rye” for perhaps the 15th time.

But today, you live, once again, in the blissful beauty of the South Fork. You love your work. You’ve got a cozy little apartment and a car, and best of all, a woman who loves you. Last week, the two of you bought bright new ornaments and lights, and later you returned to the old Hrens nursery, site of so many long-ago Christmas tree acquisitions, and carefully selected the perfect tree for that cozy apartment. Later, when she arrived home from work, you lovingly decorated the tree together and, sitting before your accomplishment, shared a fine Cotes du Rhone as Nat Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, and Kay Starr sang sweet Christmas melodies from long ago.

You don’t feel like Charlie Brown anymore, sitting at the outdoor psychiatrist’s office of Lucy van Pelt and complaining of an ill-defined melancholy. “Instead of feeling happy,” he sighed, “I feel sort of let down.”

I don’t, and why would I? Amagansett is done up so prettily, decorated trees, wreaths, and lights everywhere, and, while Santa was nowhere to be found when we made it to the square on Saturday in the early afternoon — contrary to the promise of so many communiqués — spirits were bright after an Irish coffee served up by our friend Tom at the Meeting House.

A DVD of “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” featuring the late Vince Guaraldi’s sublime jazz soundtrack, sat for a week on my desk at home. I have seen it dozens of times, owned the soundtrack for decades, and often attempt, with little success, to replicate it on the piano.

I finally persuaded Cathy to watch it with me. She liked it well enough, but was soon reading, and then dozing, while I shattered the silent night with ham-fisted renditions of “Linus and Lucy” and “Christmas Time Is Here” from the soundtrack. It’s always so much fun.

Long overdue, and even longer past Holden Caulfield’s age, my aversion to letting go of childhood is finally diminishing. I well remember class trips to the Museum of Natural History in New York, where “everything always stayed right where it was” behind the glass. “The only thing that would be different,” he recalled, “would be you. Not that you’d be so much older or anything. It wouldn’t be that, exactly. You’d just be different, that’s all.”

But it’s okay — it’s only natural — that I, that everything, would be different. “Everything changes, nothing remains without change,” said Siddhartha Gautama, also known as Buddha, the awakened one. One hundred miles and so many light years removed from that sad December in Brooklyn, Christmas may still provoke that regression to a time, as Van Morrison sang, when the world made more sense. But the past is history, the future is a mystery, and there is only now, which, as someone pointed out, is called the present. And what a glorious gift it is.

“Life is about working things out,” Cathy said in her adorable French accent. “You are not meant to be a little child. You are meant to be grown up by now.”

She’s right, of course.

Christopher Walsh is a reporter at The Star.

According to a 2011 report from Chorus America, an organization that promotes and supports choral singing, 42.6 million people sing in more than 270,000 choruses across the nation. The organization admitted that there was something a bit wonky about those figures: If the survey were correct, it would mean an extraordinary average of more than 157 people per singing group — but, still, it said emphatically that more Americans sing in organized groups “than engage in football, baseball, tennis, even Greco-Roman wrest­ling.” (Fantasy football, they conceded, has been estimated to attract an amazing 27 million participants.)

As a member of the Choral Society of the Hamptons, I am delighted to be part of such a large musical community. Two performances of our annual holiday concert were presented at the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church on Sunday, which allows me to write this week about the joy many of us take in choral singing in general and, in specific, the pleasure of  this concert of music by Bach and Mendelssohn. (I avoided using this space to tout the concert beforehand, knowing that it would have its own advance publicity and not wanting to become boring on the subject. But today, with a laudatory review in a prominent place in our arts section, I am home free to gush.)

A few weeks ago, Carissa Katz, The Star’s managing editor, had gotten me thinking about my own early singing experiences. My mother, I told her, realized by the time I turned 13 that I wasn’t going to be another Shirley Temple, and decided instead that I should take voice ed instead that I should take voice lessons. We would ride a bus from Bayonne, N.J., to Journal Square in Jersey City once a week, and it was there that I was introduced to beautiful soprano arias. I can remember to this day how one, an aria from Handel’s opera “Rinaldo,” began: The words are “Lascia ch’io pianga / mia cruda sorte” (let me weep / my cruel fate). 

I didn’t have the kind of life experience necessary for the sad emotions expressed in the aria, but, looking back, I apparently had an okay voice (as well as a precocious taste for tragic melodies). “Rinaldo” is not very well known, but anyone interested can find the aria, of course, on YouTube. It’s sad and lovely. 

As the years went on, I sang at high school assemblies, although I can’t remember what the songs may have been, and I soon became enamored of the sound of blended voices. I was a member of the New Jersey All State and Rutgers University choruses and, later, as a young woman in New York City, of such prestigious groups as the Dessoff Choir. When I came to East Hampton I am ashamed to say I was rather snotty about the prospect of joining the chorus here; but then I actually joined and quickly noticed that Dinwiddie Smith, who had been in a group I sang with at the Church of the Heavenly Rest on Fifth Avenue, was a member. If it was good enough for him, it was good enough for me.

That was a long time ago and, except for a period in the 1980s when I gave music up entirely, I’ve been at it ever since. I’ve grown to have great respect for our not-so-small-town chorus and everyone who makes an effort to hold it to a high standard.

This week, Carissa, who attended Sunday’s concert with her husband and 4 and 6-year-old children, sent me an email. I hope she doesn’t mind my sharing it. “Bravo! We all loved it,” it read. “When the chorus first sang, it was so beautiful it gave me chills. Well done to all involved. It was just lovely.” I like to think this is one of the main reasons choral singing is so popular in America: See how amply we are rewarded?

’Twas a week before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring not even the dog. When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a vision of Jesus sketched into my morning peanut butter toast.

He wore not a red suit but a ragged white robe, and wore not a silly hat but a crown full of thorns. His belly was slim, not jiggling with jelly, and He didn’t look jolly but solemn and troubled.

He left me a message each day for a week and said he’s dismayed at the havoc we’ve wreaked.

I dared not eat eggs for the mess He might make, but He said it’s a mess that we’ve made on our own. He said we were fighting in wars that should end, and that the Kardashians should be set out to sea in a storm. He’ll greet them with glee and rid them of vanity and teach humility. Celebrity nonsense is one He not likes and He said we’re all one and must share all alike.

The rich are too rich and the poor are too poor, so it’s time we all group as one like before. If good deeds are performed, then happiness follows. It’s in our best interest to all get along.

Warriors, He said, should lay down their weapons to find peace without sorrow at least for a day. The wars being fought are all wrong, He did say, for no matter what He’s called, He is one for us all.

The scripture He wrote each day was fine; you could tell He had plenty of stuff on His mind. And what did He write on my toast you may ask, oh plenty of stuff; He took us to task.

Our fingers were not made to tap on a screen, but for tilling the soil to nurture ourselves. He never looked down, his eyes glued on mine, and channeled a message that He wanted to spread. Our clothing is silly and costs far too much, a waste of good money that will soon turn to dust. Our smiles to each other, not perfect and pure, but a gesture that should not be ignored.

The greed all around us should end right away, or a flood just like Noah’s will soon fill the land. The earth it is warming and not just a hoax, for what He created is not going as planned. Soon He’ll determine what happens next, but another chance He’ll give us to fix what is wrong.

At Christmas it’s time to reach out to each other and share all good things, no matter how precious. And finally He wrote on my toast yesterday, “Happy Christmas to all and to all a good day.”

Janis Hewitt is a senior writer for The Star.

Christa and I made a quick trip to New York recently. As we turned east on 34th Street after emerging from the Midtown Tunnel, we saw at least 50 Santas heading west toward Herald Square to take part in SantaCon. I noticed that every costume was the same, down to the cheap black plastic belt, the white faux-fur trim, and the ludicrous beard. And I recalled my own experiences, many years ago, as a St. Nick imposter.

In 1989, when I was working at Guild Hall, the staff was planning to march in the East Hampton Santa parade. None of us owned tractors or trucks, nor did we have the wherewithal to build a float. Somebody had the idea that one of us should dress as Santa Claus. Except for the security and maintenance people, who had to work on Saturday, I was the only male on the staff.

So as we paraded down Newtown Lane, I tossed candy canes left and right, blissfully unaware that at the end of the parade was the “real” Santa Claus. I wonder how many kids asked their parents why there were two Santas. And how many parents cursed the sham St. Nick for subverting their children’s fantasies.

(Then again, I can only imagine the confusion of city children watching on television as hundreds of Santas rampaged through New York in various stages of inebriation and disorderliness.)

Starting when my daughter, Kate, was 3 years old, and my son, Devin, was 1, every Christmas their playgroup -— kids and parents -— would celebrate with a party. Since I had the Santa costume in my closet, I volunteered to make a surprise visit as Father Christmas.

I tromped down the stairs carrying a pillowcase full of toys, ho-ho-ho-ing as authentically as I could, and solicited the kids’ Christmas wishes while they took turns on my lap. I was astonished that none of the kids, including my own, recognized me. This charade continued for at least four more years. I remember playing Kris Kringle in Devin’s kindergarten class at the Springs School without his realizing who I was.

Finally, when Kate was 7, she noticed that Santa had a Band-Aid on the same finger as her father. The jig was up. A different challenge posed itself. Since they knew Santa wasn’t coming down the chimney, what could we do to retain some holiday magic?

I had always awoken at 4 a.m. to stuff the presents beneath the tree. One year the big present was an outdoor, 15-foot-diameter trampoline. The only way to make it a surprise was to assemble it in the backyard before the kids woke up Christmas morning, directions and parts illuminated by a single floodlight. It’s a Festivus miracle it didn’t collapse when they started bouncing.

Another year they opened envelopes Christmas morning that held tickets to London, where we flew the following day. With the exception of a bomb scare at the Tate Modern, being locked inside Kensington Gardens, and a trip to Legoland, where Devin insisted I accompany him on a water ride in 30-degree weather, it was a splendid trip.

The surprises peaked when Devin was in seventh grade. Several of his friends had dirt bikes -— motorcycles, not bicycles -— that they rode on the trails in Springs. I don’t know if he has ever wanted anything more than he wanted a dirt bike, but I told him it was out of the question. Nonetheless, I visited the showroom in Southampton out of curiosity, blanched when I heard what the machines cost, then fell, not for the first time, for the offer of an extended payment plan.

The salesman delivered the bike the day before Christmas while the kids were in school, and I rolled it into our storage shed. Even today, the memory of Devin’s face when I opened the door to the shed brings tears to my eyes. As did the sight of my son taking off on the bike, shifting gears, and disappearing from sight. (I never mastered the machine. I stopped trying after I popped a wheelie and almost drove into Charlie Marder’s back porch.)

The bikes weren’t street-legal, but the kids chose trails and side streets over main roads. However, about six months later the police busted Devin and a couple of his friends as they emerged from a trail onto one of the streets off Gardiner Avenue in Springs. After I bailed out the bike and managed to get it home in the back of my minivan, it wound up where it started: in the shed.

Sometimes when I think about Christmas, I’m ashamed at how each year, despite my resolutions to the contrary, I have capitulated to the idea that more is more, not for me but for my kids. And I still do. Except now it’s not toys but clothing, kitchenware, and other things they can’t afford while working for nonprofits and paying Brooklyn rents. So my conscience is relatively clear, and I tell myself I’m doing my bit for the supposed economic recovery.

Mark Segal is a writer at The Star.

The clamor among some Democrats, those who used to be known as liberal but now prefer to be called progressive, for Elizabeth Warren to run for president makes for fascinating politics. Like Barack Obama when he took on his first successful presidential campaign, she is a freshman senator. 

It might be said that the trajectory of candidates for our highest political office has, like everything else in our developed world, speeded up. Before 2008, few of us would have thought a first-term senator could resign before even that first term was over to run for president (much less win). 

According to credible exit polls, Mr. Obama’s first victory depended in large part on those younger than 30 who gave him 66 percent of their vote. It’s fair to say that in the most recent election this mass of youthful supporters stayed home, no doubt because many had become disillusioned. 

No longer do the words on the most famous of the Obama posters, “hope,” “change,” and “progress,” seem to hold much political potency. Even ardent Obama fans have had a hard time keeping the fires of hope stoked during the virulent factionalism battles in Washington over the last six years. Cynics have been made of many naïve or idealistic voters, and the pendulum has been given a hard swing to the right.

Depending on your point of view, it’s easy either to love or to hate Elizabeth Warren. Her intensity in speaking out about the corrupting influence of big banks and her courage in doing so are remarkable. Even so, it’s hard to imagine that she, or anyone else, could wear the kind of national-savior mantle that supporters draped over Mr. Obama. (There were many, to be sure, who always thought he was the emperor with no clothes.) 

Hillary Clinton is supported by 53 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa, according to a recent Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register poll. That’s roughly five times more than those who support Ms. Warren. 

Some political theorists say the organizations urging Ms. Warren to come forward as a presidential candidate — MoveOn, Democracy for America, Emily’s List — have an unstated agenda, which is to press Mrs. Clinton, the only viable candidate in the field so far, to prove her own willingness to take on Wall Street and to adopt at least some of what they describe positively as Ms. Warren’s economic populism.

Ms. Warren has said she is not seeking the nomination; if that holds true, it may turn out to be good for the Democratic Party. Who knows what the future holds for her? My guess is that she has already taken heed of what Charles Krauthammer, the ultraconservative columnist, has said about her: “I’d love to see her run,” Mr. Krauthammer said. “It would be a festival if you’re a conservative or a Republican. We put up anybody sentient on the other side it’ll be a good night on election night.”