It's snowing! It's snowing! It's snowing!

Hey, did you hear it was snowing?

And it was Dec. 1! The first day of snow was on the first day of December? Can you smell the irony?

Yup, at 20 years old I am still as excited as a kid in the candy store at the first sight of classic winter precipitation.

True, it's not the first first snowfall of this winter -- but the random hundred flakes that fell at the end of October didn't count.

That was just frustrating.

It was too early in the season for snow.

But now?

Now I'm ready. I'm playing in a football game tomorrow and I'm hoping for the chance to slam my opponent's face into the freezing snow. I'm ready to curl up on my couch with hot chocolate and fuzzy socks and watch the snow fall outside.

I'm ready to have snowball fights and make snow angels and basically act like a five-year-old all over again.

And think about it. Happy Valley mandates that it's ice cold for at least four months of the year. If it doesn't start snowing soon, I'm willing to bet this spring is going to be mighty white.

But what is it about the first snowfall that's so magical?

Perhaps it's the frame of mind we suddenly fall into when it first starts snowing. As if there are no other cares in the world, we make the one-mile trek through two feet of snow to get to class, and we love every minute of it.

Then, if we're in class and the snow starts to fall again, we all gasp in unison, as if we've lived in the tropics all of our lives, and it's virtually impossible for the professor to regain control of the class and continue lecturing. How sweet.

Maybe it's the way the snow covers the world in a blanket of white. Everything seems new and ready for a fresh start.

Maybe it's the remembrance of the days of yore, when snow meant getting out of school for the day. I remember how I'd hear the radio announcement, crawl back under the covers and rest for the massive, neighborhood-wide snowball fight that would almost assuredly take place that afternoon.

And for all of you who support the age old Calvin and Hobbes adage, "Getting an inch of snow is like winning 10 cents in the lottery," have a little faith. It might just accumulate to two inches!

And maybe it's just magical because watching people use umbrellas to fend off the snow is incredibly entertaining. Umbrellas are for rain. Hats and gloves are for snow. End of story.

Of course, in the back of my mind, I know this feeling of elation will only last so long.

Give it a few weeks into next semester, when my shoes are soaking wet and I've lost my winter coat and all the white has turned to a dirty, discolored slush.

We'll all be cursing the day we decided to go to school in the middle of Pennsylvania. We'll be counting down the days until we can wear flip-flops and T-shirts instead of putting on every layer possible just to keep warm.

But maybe, just for now, let's not think about how much it will suck later on. Let's just be excited, for any reason.

Maybe we get excited because it gives us the chance to actually stop for a minute and appreciate the simple things in life; to remember a simpler time when we didn't have to go to class for five hours and then work for eight just so we can make this month's rent payment.

Maybe it's one of the few things we still hold onto from our childhood that makes us happy whenever it happens.

No matter what the reason, we should all take the time to welcome the season's first snowfall, and reflect back on a simpler time.