Frost on the pumpkins, slush on the ground, ice on my windshield

It's snowing!!!

Awwww -- you can cheer louder than that ...

IT'S SNOWING!!!

Sheets of it. Waves of it. White is collecting on the yards, on the roofs, on the cars. The streets are wet, I broke out the hat and scarf and gloves, I brushed the slop off my rear window and worked my way around the car, and when I got to the rear window again, it needed to be brushed again. Cars look like moving snowballs, hurtling down the street. It's fabulous.

This is fall in Wyoming. This is what I love.

I'll be sick of it by January, when the wind starts to really get to me, when the sub-zero temperatures freeze the snot in my nose and give my lungs freezer burn, when I have to take a hot bath just to get the feeling back in my feet after spending some time outside.

But this isn't January. It's October, and it's snowing. It makes me crave tea, pumpkin pie, hot spiced wine, stew and chili; it makes me want to crochet something; to sit in front of a fireplace and get absorbed in a good book; to wrap up in loose, comfy PJs and watch a Jane Austen movie; to light candles and just sit there in the sem-dark, enjoying the glow of little flickering flames agains the blue glow of a nighttime window framing a winter wonderland scene. I browsed Christmas music at Hastings and Christmas decorations at K-Mart. I smelled evergreen candles and had the Carol of the Bells running through my head.

Fall is the gateway to the Christmas season. Fall is the get-ready time. Fall is the time when you start to get those warm, fuzzy feelings that bubble over during the Christmas season ... Christmas joy doesn't begin at Christmas. It begins in October. Not because the Wal-Mart marketing heads say so, but because that's when I start to get that glimmer of hope for the Most Wonderful Time of the Year; when I smile at someone and say, "Baby, it's COLD outside;" when visions of smiling pumpkins dance in my head, preparing the stage for sugarplums.

Classical music provides a great backdrop to this. After several months of cruising Top-40 stations, Contemporary Christian stations and golden oldies stations, this time of year seems completely appropriate to dial it down a bit, take a deep breath, and get re-acquainted with Mozart, Elgar and the like, to let the spirit soar with sacred vocal music, to ebb and flow, sway and twirl with crescendoing violins and melancholy oboes, to lift a soul with raised voices ... THAT's the music for this time of year. It accompanies scones, it pairs well with wine, it complements a variety of good, hearty food ... it adds an element of the warm and genteel to what can feel cold and hurried sometimes.

So. That's fall. That's classical music. It's October, and it's snowing.

But for the grinches among you, don't worry. Not yet, anyway -- it'll all melt by Monday, if not sooner.