QotD: Winter Wonderland

Snowball fights, hot cocoa by the fire, and sleigh rides... What's your favorite thing about winter?

Oh, I remember it with great nostalgia.  Now I live in Texas, but I spent my first 23 years in Illinois.  That's 23 winters' worth of memories there.  There are way too many things that I love about winter to choose just one.  I celebrate the entire collection.

• Around November the sun bids the sky adieu, as the cloud cover completely blots out any evidence of its existence, not to be seen again until - oh - March, if you're lucky.
• There's that strange sensation that occurs when, every other body part buried under several clothing layers composed of animal, vegetable and/or mineral, your face actually starts to freeze.  Muscles physically cannot contract and relax at the same speed they once could, thus you find children scrunching up their faces for fun yelling, "Look how slow MY nose is!!!"
• Boogers that you didn't even know you had freeze solid and pull at your nosehairs.
• Heaters running at full tilt, air becomes bone-dry yielding cracked lips and hands, hair that flies around your head as if you were in contact with a Van DeGraff generator, and a veritable electric storm under the blankets as you turn over in bed in your flannel pajamas.  Not to mention the massive electric shock incurred when touching the bedroom doorknob first thing every morning.
• Clearing snow off your car using shovels/buckets/brooms/arms/hands/ice scrapers/books/purses/shopping bags/floor mats/roadmaps.
• Chipping ice off your windows using ice scrapers/parking passes/credit cards/books/cassette tapes.
• Making sure your car had more than 1/4 tank of gas, so as the fuel line didn't freeze.
• Bringing the car battery inside the house and setting it by a space heater at night.
• Cars/carpets/shoes/pants cuffs constantly wet, dirty and salt-covered until the spring thaw.

I do miss hitching up our horses for those sleigh rides though...