Finally, the most wonderful time of the year is here — snow days. January 21 and 22 marked the first two snow days of this school year. Thursday, January 21, was cancelled due to road conditions and today, January 22, was cancelled due to the forecast of a blizzard. The snow now covers the ground across Fairfax County, and there are blizzard warnings across Northern Virginia.

After returning from a four day weekend, FCPS students now have a second four day weekend after one day of school. While no one is complaining about a one day week, it is questionable whether it was necessary for school to be cancelled on Thursday.

“I still had to go to work on Thursday, and there wasn’t a lot of snow, so I don’t think it should have been cancelled. Maybe a delay at the most. But you know, I’m not really complaining,” sophomore Mariam Khan said.

Some agree with the FCPS ruling and find the decision to cancel a smart one.

“I thought it was a very wise decision. What with all the accidents that occurred on Wednesday night due to the relatively light snow, it would have been extremely irresponsible to force student drivers to make it to school in dangerous conditions. I also got out of taking my Physics Rotation Quest, so the cancellation was a win-win,” junior Sean Tran said.

Today, Friday was also cancelled, due to the weather forecast of a blizzard. However it did not start snowing until around 1:00 pm in most areas, so whether school should have been cancelled is also debateable.

“I would have said early release because it didn’t start snowing until later. But, again, I’m grateful,” Khan said.

Others agree with the decision to cancel school all together.

“Since the snow started at one it’s good that they cancelled it because otherwise buses and kids driving home would’ve gotten stuck in snow on the way home,” senior Kaila Stein said.

Whether school should have been cancelled or not, most everyone was able to enjoy and make use of the two back-to-back snow days.

“On Thursday, I slept for most of the day, I got to stockpile sleep hours for midterms next week. I also decided to start learning some choreography that I’ve had saved for a while.Today, I went outside and took a lot of pictures in the snow and slept a lot. The best thing to do on a snow day in my opinion is rest,” Tran said.

On top of not going to school, many are excited about finally getting more than 1 inch of snow this winter.

“I like snow, and I like to play in it with my cousins, or take pictures of it,” Khan said.

“I love snow. I have a lot of great memories playing in the snow when I was little and I still love to go out and spend time in the snow. It’s a lot of fun and it makes everything so pretty,” Stein said.

With all the snow forecasted to come this weekend, many will be making the most of the opportunity to build and play in the snow.

“I hope that I can build a decent snowman or igloo, because we don’t usually get enough snow to build good ones,” Tran said.

However, as fun as snow is, there can be some downsides to not having school.

“I’m doing a lot of I-nite stuff, so I missed some I-nite practices. Other than that, I’m very relieved,” Khan said.

Besides missing extracurricular activities and seeing friends, most were happy to push-off taking tests, doing homework, and missing classes. While the benefits of school cancellations might be what we about snow the best, there is definitely more to snow than just not going to school.

“I love snow, the way that it just blankets everything tells a tale of renewal and purity, and that feeling of freshness always brightens my mood,” Tran said.