Forget the snarled traffic and chaos of local roads, cancelations, inconveniences and covered sidewalks, icy windshields and frantic runs on grocery stores. The serendipity of snow during Christmas time is a gift unmatched by anything on a store shelf, online, or in a catalog. As it fell, my spirits rose and remembered the anticipation and excitement of snow days, waking before light to that blanket of white and peculiar peace and hush–the muffled quiet that only a snowfall brings. Early, before the streets and lawns were scarred by boots and snowman parts, it was a scene from a fairytale, and I recall nearly forgetting to breathe, it was so beautiful.

It is a different time, and I am a busy adult. Few things move me to the fullness of joy that childhood did. I have always thought it a shame, trickery almost, that we didn’t know we were in the midst of magic when it was upon us. That it took years of distance from our early innocence to realize that that kind of happiness is a gift of youth. Some of us never capture it again in quite the same way. And that is why, when flakes fall unexpectedly in feathery lightness and gray-clad silence, I catch it on my tongue as I did years ago, and welcome the gift of snow.