I woke up at my usual 5:30 a.m., went out to get the paper, scowled at the sleet, and retreated back inside, grumpy about the cruddy weather. At about 6:30 a.m. my husband said, “It’s snowing.” To which I replied, “It’s not snow. It’s sleet.” Because, after all, this is south Louisiana. It snows here rarely, if ever, and I didn’t think it was cold enough for actual snow.

“No,” he replied patiently (and a touch smugly. “It’s snowing. Come see.”

I looked outside and said, “Holy s**t, it’s snowing!”

This wasn’t just some spastic flurries. This was honest-to-god snow. Within about ten minutes it was starting to accumulate. By the time I took Anna down to the bus stop there was enough on the ground to make a foot-high snow man.

By 11a.m. there was about four inches on the ground and everyone had come outside at some point to take pictures of their houses covered in snow. “We’re all such southern dorks!” we all agreed cheerfully. We also all agreed that this was the most snow we’d ever seen here.

By 1 p.m. the snow had stopped, and by about 3 p.m. the sun had come out and everyone was merrily playing in the snow.

The hardest part, though, was convincing Anna that, even though it had snowed, it was not, in fact, Christmas already!