Recently, the night before a forecasted snowstorm, I found myself wishing for a snow day. I sat in bed refreshing the weather app repeatedly, consumed with excitement as it reloaded. I felt like a child again as I wished for the projected snowfall total to increase. And now I'm convinced the magic of a snow day outlasts childhood?I feel it at forty years old as strong as I did when I was little.
Where my love of snow days came from
Some of my earliest memories are of my father pulling me in a sled across the snow-filled yard. As I grew bigger, playing in the snow was wonderful, but a school closure from a snowstorm was the best feeling in the world.

In the winter of 1996, a severe nor'easter paralyzed the east coast of the United States with up to 4 feet of snow over three days. I was in seventh grade that year when the blizzard dropped 30 inches of snow in the Philadelphia region where I lived. Another storm a few days later brought more.
One after the other, snow days piled up, and so did mugs of hot chocolate. A snow fort in my front yard became my second home, and no matter how thoroughly I describe this epic storm today, my children can't fully understand. They're waiting for their turn, and I hope they get it.

This year, after two winter seasons without snow, I was back in my seventh-grade mindset, eager for snow to fall again. I told my nine-year-old that if we did a snow dance, the likelihood of a day off from school increased, so we giggled as we spun around thr...