Snow.

I love those little magical Christmas moments that pop up from time to time. It started snowing here tonight around 6:oo and we had to go to Todd's office party at the Newport News golf club. The club is in the Newport News city park...the park does one of those drive-through holiday lights things every year, and to get to the clubhouse, you have to drive through almost the whole light display. Since you're going to a party, they let you drive through for free instead of having to cough up the $10 per car it would normally cost you. So it's a very festive way to go to a party!

The party was nice--great food, good people to talk to, although no one got drunk and made a fool of themselves this year, which I found disappointing. Through the whole party, we could see the snow falling outside the windows.

When we left, we had to walk back along the road to our car. On one stretch, we were walking between these tall thin trees all strung with pink and white lights, and the snow was falling in these huge wet flakes...it was so lovely. Very magical-feeling.

Especially since snow is such a rarity here. This is our seventh winter here, and I can count the snowfalls on one hand. That includes the dustings that melted by the next day. So snow is an event.

Everyone to the north of us is getting buried, but I don't think the snow will stay here long. It's exactly 32 degrees, and the precipitation wavers between very wet snow and very cold rain. Once it warms up tomorrow, the snow will definitely become rain and that will be the end of it. Todd says the freeze line is right between here and Williamsburg, so 15-20 minutes away they are getting piles of snow, and here it's just white and mushy.

Maybe it will stick long enough for me to get some snow pictures tomorrow morning!