In the movies, children with pink cheeks awake on Christmas morning, run to a window and marvel at the expanse of fresh white snow.
They check in snowmen built the night before, clothe themselves in triple layers and sip hot cocoa to defrost.
That won’t happen this year.
Abnormally high temperatures, thunder and lightning will combine to make Sunday feel more like a stormy day in June.
The high in Lincoln is predicted to hit 57 degrees on Christmas Day, making it the sixth warmest on record. The record high for the day is 65, set in 1889. The last time Lincoln saw 57 degrees on Christmas was in 1963.
That doesn’t mean travel will be easy, especially for those traveling north.
The National Weather Service predicts a blizzard for the northern plains, and the central planes will see two severe thunderstorms.
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“We’re going to have abnormally high moisture in the area, and it’s going to be warmer than normal,†said Becky Kern with the National Weather Service in Valley.
The biggest threat this weekend for central and southeast Nebraska, Kern said, could be damaging winds.
People planning to travel to North Dakota and South Dakota might consider changing their plans due to a blizzard forming there.
Parts of the Dakotas can expect between 12 to 18 inches of snow pushed along by 40 mph winds.
“But for us, we won’t see any snow,†Kern said.
For those traveling by airplane, she said, the weather could cause delays.
“It’s not a picture perfect sunny Christmas Day for a good chunk of the area,†she said.
It isn’t unusual for Lincoln to be snowless on Christmas. Lancaster County had snow on the ground for only 40 percent of Christmases, according to an analysis of the years spanning 1981 to 2010.