In response to carbonel , who I guess was responding to other social media peer pressure example, I thought I'd start writing about my earliest memories of snow and see what popped out.

My first dim memories of snow are from North Carolina, where we lived high enough in the Smoky Mountains to get occasional dustings of snow. I don't remember much - just feeling the same joy and amazement that my grandchildren in Portland do when they get the rare and wondrous gift of snow. I also remember being disappointed that there wasn't enough to make a snowman, or even to completely cover the grass ("Is this all there is?"") We moved from there when I was 5, so memories are vague.

Then we lived in Connecticut for a couple of years, where it does snow regularly but apparently not enough to make an impression on me. In 2nd grade we moved to Maine, where I remember tons of snow. My best memory was that time the whole family worked together to make a giant snow horse as big as a real pony. It later developed a glaze of ice and lasted for what seemed like months. We talked about that magnificent snow horse for years afterwards and frequently talked about making another one, but somehow never did. We might have made a snow dragon or two - that's a lot easier. 

From 5th - 8th grade I lived in upstate New York near Rochester, where we probably had even more snow than we did in Maine. The elementary school was right next to our house, and they plowed all the snow from the school bus drive into the middle of the circle into a giant ice-covered mountain that must have been 30 feet high. The neighborhood kids climbed to the top and burrowed into it, turning it into a labyrinth of ice caves. It was magical. My memory is that this happened every year, but most likely I am remembering the peak snow year from that period. 

During high school we moved back to Connecticut again, which was more given to ice storms than heavy snows. Once I was old enough to drive, snow and ice became less enchanting and more of a nuisance, although I did kind of enjoy bombing down our quarter-mile dirt driveway, bouncing and skidding through the icy ruts to avoid getting stuck.

And now I live in Minneapolis. The climate was in a very cold phase when I moved here (1972), which was a bit of a shock. But from the beginning I have been perennially disappointed by the surprisingly puny amount of snow in the average winter for such a northern clime. There's nothing I hate more than a dark, snowless December. This year feels about right. Inconvenient, but like a real winter.