At some point in the 'wee' morning hours last night I cracked my eyes open briefly and noted how bright it looked outside through the windows. And that's how I knew it was snowing, and felt confident that when we awoke in the morning we'd be greeted by newfallen snow. When snow falls during the night there's a telltale glow in the sky, and it transmits as a bright light emitted from the exterior to the interior, which in this instance is our night-time-dark bedroom.

And sure enough, not only had snow fallen, but more was coming down. Not great flakes, but tiny ones, in a thick shower that made us feel pretty good looking out over the fresh blanket that so wonderfully well covered the drab grey and black of the near-winter season awaiting snow. It isn't the first snowfall of this season but the previous two which were far more copious than this one is yet, melted thanks to a week of too-mild weather.

The Christmas decorations on our neighbours' lawns and homes will look far more 'in season', now with snow down. But those who have invested in those cartoonish large and colourful inflatable decorations of trains and Santas, sleds and reindeer, still made a poor choice. There are two of those inflatables on the street and once inflated they last intact all of a day before completely deflating, a pitiable sight of colourful plastic limply decorating a lawn, pooled flat out.

The best decoration is the simplest. And that's the natural decor of winter after a generous snowfall. One of our neighbours has decorated the front of his house and his spruce tree with all-white lights, and it looks understated and elegant, much more attractive than the houses with multi-coloured lights. Jackie and Jillie are completely non-committal on the subject; offering no opinion, reminding us that it isn't, after all, their holiday.

Although we're beyond familiar with the sight of a forest clothed in a new, thick frosting of snow, it's always exciting to see the landscape when it's fresh and gleaming with a purity all its own. It's always as though it's the first time our eyes have clamped upon the spectacle, for spectacle it is, of natural beauty beyond compare. It resembles a fantasy world.

 When Jackie and Jillie went out to the backyard first thing this morning, their first reaction was to run amok in the snow, delighted with its return. It's the kind of snow that clings, perfect for snowball-production and for erecting forts and snowmen. Igloos too, come to think of it. When our granddaughter was very young and we were her daytime caregivers we would take her out with us daily into the snowy winter landscape. She learned to plop backward into the snow and rotate her arms and legs to produce snow angels.

Jackie and Jillie haven't yet graduated to that level of sophistication.