Winter Wonderland for One Brief Night

Oh my, it was so lovely here a few nights ago. The snow was coming down in big, wet flakes and transforming our Central PA "blah" landscape into a real winter wonderland. For some reason (and don't say "global warming"), we haven't had much in the way of winter weather the past few years. I suspect it is because of how we are geographically located.

We are far enough south in Pennsylvania that the temperatures are often too warm to bring snow and instead, we get rain. Bummer! We also have a ridge of mountains to our west and north. Usually, if a weather system is moving from west to east across the Midwest, when it reaches our little mountain range, the snow gets dumped on the western side of the hills and by the time it makes it to our side, it has fizzled out. The only time we really get blasted with snow is when two things happen.......1. The temperatures are cold enough and 2. The weather system is coming from the south. Yes, when we get a Nor'easter, it's a doozy.
But like I was saying, these last few years have been gray and cold and often rainy but that's usually about it. So I was thrilled to see the snow shimmering in the Christmas lights and had to run outside to take some pictures. Sadly, the next day it warmed up and soon our little snowfall had melted away.
You realize, of course, that I've probably jinxed our neck of the woods by saying we don't get much snow, especially since I have to do jury duty right after New Year's. The last time I had jury duty, we had one of the worst winters on record. We had snow and ice storms every Wednesday and Saturday that winter, it seemed. At the time, we were living on top of a steep hill overlooking a valley and I had to drive over 20 miles to get to the courthouse each day. I was petrified, never knowing if I'd make it down or up the hill or to the trial on time. But God was good and I survived. Let's hope the white stuff holds off until mid-January, at least.
Stay warm, everyone. The wind is howling outside my window like a banshee. You'd think we were in the middle of a blizzard but there isn't a bit of snow on the ground. However, our reindeer have lost their antlers repeatedly tonight and we just had a Christmas tree topple outside. So the reindeer have come into the barn, er, garage temporarily for the night.