The Snow Tonight on Sant' Elena

The falling snow tonight made Sandro break into song--"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", to be exact--sending him back to thoughts of Christmas.

It made me look forward to spring. I can admit this now that Sandro is asleep in bed. While he was awake--well, a child's enthusiasm is contagious. 

One snowfall per winter seems just right for Venice. Some years, our native Venetian neighbor told us during our first winter here, no snow falls at all. But with two snow storms, as has occurred this year, the experience threatens to become a bit mundane, even conventional--as if this is a place where snow is to be expected, rather than a place where it always arrives as a pleasant surprise.

Ah, how quickly one becomes jaded... Of course, if the snow we'd had so far this year hadn't been so wet--better for making puddles with than snowmen--I'd probably feel much more enthusiastic about it. But, at least for the short time before it begins dripping on your head like rain, it does look quite nice on the trees.