I thought it would be fun to count down the days until Christmas on the blog, with a post daily highlighting some sort of holiday theme. Starting today (the 14th, and yes, I know I’ve gotten off to a late start), and going right up until the 25th, that’s 12 days—just like the song you now have stuck in your head.

(No, it’s not accurate as far as the actual "12 days of Christmas" go—which run from the 25th until January 5th—but it’s more fun in a countdown kind of way.)

So on this First Day of Christmas, Bend is finally getting snow (and cold weather!). Snow in the mountains for the much-needed snowpack (from which we get our water) and the ever-so-popular winter sports and tourism (interesting story here about the snow-makers at Mt. Bachelor; the whole "making snow" thing seems odd to me); and snow down here out of the mountains which may even stick around long enough to give us a White Christmas.

In fact, as I write this, it’s currently something like 8 degrees, and with the 10-day weather forecast it doesn’t look like the snow is going anywhere—so that White Christmas seems pretty likely to me.