Snow at Christmas isn’t like other snow. It’s a fluffy white enchantment, specially made by a tiny, isolated colony of Emperor Penguins. For most of the year, they live just like other Emperor Penguins: fishing, hatching eggs and huddling together for warmth.
In December, they begin their unique task.
Their workshop is beneath Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. Under the menacing, merciless cracking of shifting ice around them, they fill great stone bowls with shards chipped from the glacier. When it is judged that enough has been gathered, they roll weighty boulders inside the bowls to grind up the ice. Hatchlings warm their feet and watch in fascination. The work is exhausting but the colony accepts its responsibility.
On Christmas eve they drag the giant bowls on top of Thwaites, satisfied with a job well done. After a short rest, they form a circle and sing the summoning song into the twilight. Drawn by the ritual, the four winds come: lazy Zephyrus, angry Boreas, and the playful twins Notus and Eurus.
Up, up they fling the flakes from the bowls and playfully, angrily, lazily hurl them at each other across their playground, the world. Most of the penguins’ hard work falls on the ocean but each year, a handful of human places are blessed with glacier-ground snow. One dispensation is granted to the penguins who sing at Christmas: the first of the Thwaites snow falls around them. As the rainbow flakes shimmer down, they are reminded that creating a little magic is always worth it.