There's a very important fact about this song that I noticed you've all neglected to mention: Joni Mitchell is Canadian but she moved to California to be a hippie and pursue her music career, the song is about her spending christmas in a place and a way that is so foreign to her -- no snow no ice skating... (honestly, I'm jewish so whenever christmas comes along I feel like I'm being smothered in cheesyness, but I have spent it in canada a couple times and parts of it really are magical like she describes---- the snow, ice skating, amazing lights everywhere etc.)
It's a song about wanting to get away from everything and go back to simpler more innocent times!!
There's a very important fact about this song that I noticed you've all neglected to mention: Joni Mitchell is Canadian but she moved to California to be a hippie and pursue her music career, the song is about her spending christmas in a place and a way that is so foreign to her -- no snow no ice skating... (honestly, I'm jewish so whenever christmas comes along I feel like I'm being smothered in cheesyness, but I have spent it in canada a couple times and parts of it really are magical like she describes---- the snow, ice skating, amazing lights everywhere etc.) It's a song about wanting to get away from everything and go back to simpler more innocent times!!