"The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?"*

It's finally snowing here in Massachusetts - three quarters of the way through January, and the shovels have only been out once (a freak storm the last weekend in October): if that's not some evidence that the climate is screwy, I don't know what is.  I've mentioned before that I find the snow both calming and serene - an unpopular opinion around here, which undoubtedly stems from the fact that I don't do any of the shoveling, or really have to interact with its actual coldness and freeze at all, but I'd much rather it snowed in the winter than rained.  Winter rain is the most depressing weather: too gray and sad, all of the wet and none of the fluff of snow.  It m akes me shiver just to think of it. Spring rains feel necessary, as if we need a good hosing down before moving into the next, and summer rains are almost always exciting: refreshing after the heat, filled with thunder and lightening, moving quick and powerful like.  Rain in the fall is like the clean up crew again - scrubbing clean the trees, stripping things bare and a reminder that the year is coming to an end.  But winter rain serves no purpose - 'it's not cold enough to snow', it tells you,' but it might as well be. You feel how wet this is?  It's all for nothing.'  Snow is just cozy in a way winter rain will never be - even its isolation is beautiful.

No, if there has to be precipitation in the winter, it ought to be snow - something you can watch coming down and remember all the times they cancelled school and you got to watch game shows all day long, or all the snowmen you tried to make that never made it past your shin but you were still proud of them anyways. 

It's funny because last winter it snowed so much they started talking about holding school on Saturdays, kids had missed so much time.  And this year, so far, there's not been more than three or four inches at a time, and most of that has blown or melted away on its own.  Even today, although it's been snowing for a couple of hours now, the grass is still poking through in some spots, the inch or so that we've got seems thin, just enough to muffle things a bit, not even a full blanket.  It's supposed to go for most of the day, though, so there's hope for a more complete covering. 

Either way, I'm planning on spending the day with some hot chocolate, the radio, some blankets and something good to read.  I hope your Saturday is filled with things that you enjoy, as well.  

*J. B. Priestley