Why I Love Snowdays

I write this blog post at great risk to my personal well-being, you see, I've got a number of friends, especially among my co-workers *cough* Rebecca *cough*, who despise these snow days that have been burying us with increasing frequency of late.

I could break out the tired mantra of "you live in New England, move to Florida if you don't like the snow," but that's too flip and overused.

Instead, I'd just like to throw out a few of the reasons why I savor, hope for, and and celebrate a good old fashioned, New England snow day.

1) DVD catch-up: There's nothing like a snowbound day to plop in a DVD collection to catch up on some of the previous seasons of your favorite show. I've currently got Smallville, the X-Files, Dexter, the Big Bang Theory, and Doctor Who queued up at my house. Today's choice happened to be a terrific run of David Tennant's Doctor, complete with Martha Jones:

2) Coming in out of the cold into a nice warm house makes you realize all those things that need fixing that you fret about the rest of the year seem pretty insignificant when you can just appreciate having a roof over your head on days like this.

3) A home-cooked meal, especially the soups among my wife's repertoire, just seem to taste better on days like this. And judging from the posts of my Facebook friends, culinary adventures seem to be a true pleasure for lots of other folks as well.

4) I can't lie, I love shoveling. Yeah, I've got a snowblower for the big stuff, but shoveling is great exercise, and just great fun, especially when you've got quality tunes cranking on the ipod.

5) Let's face it, we work hard. At least most of us do. So the occasional snow day breaking up a work week is just God's way of giving the kids and by extension, us, a mental health day. There's literally thousands of work days looming in front of us still. Can't we just appreciate the occasional time-out?

6) Admit it: the snow looks beautiful out there. Not so much when it's mixed with mud, dirt, salt, etc. and sloppily piled up along the busy roadways. But take a glance around your neighborhood. Isn't this one of the reasons you chose to live in New England?

7) But for me, hand's down, the best thing about snow days? Getting to spend more time with the kids, and over the course of years, capturing moments like this:

Haven't gotten fresh pics from today's storm yet, but there's still time, with snowzilla looming on the horizon.

So go ahead, tell me why YOU love/hate a good old fashioned New England snowstorm!