The first snow of the year is particularly magical. Fluffy snowflakes lazily drift down from the sky, the kind of snowflakes that are more a collection rather individual flakes. There is enough space between the snowflakes that you can watch their arcing patterns as they float on the wind. It’s as if the snowflakes are just as excited about the prospect of winter as the rest of the world seems to be. They dance and flutter in the sky, a visual reminder that, in just a month or so, you’ll be waking up to piercingly cold mornings and scraping ice off of windshields. The early snow is nice, a fresh and pretty beginning to winter. It’s when we get to January that moods start to change.

Eventually, you get thrust out of the enchanting newness of November and December snow into the sharp icy gray of midwinter and beyond. The time when you put on two layers of mittens and your hands are still freezing. When everything gets so coated in ice that the trees seem to be wearing armor. When you’re so chilled to your bones that you forget what being too hot feels like. When the weather forecast tells you that the day’s estimated high temperature is a balmy 15 degrees Fahrenheit (because almost anything is warm when you’re used to two-degree days). When you step outside to a sudden shock of frigidity and your eyelashes instantly freeze.

Winter in the Adirondacks is equal parts beautiful and bleak, so how do you take the good with the bad?

Well, you can make the most of the cold weather, that’s for sure. We live in a place perfectly suited for gripping winter tight and shaking as much enjoyment as we can out of it. There’s skiing of all various types. Figure skating. Hockey. Snowboarding, snowmobiling, snowshoeing. The list goes on and on. Or, if you’re more of the relaxed type, simply just taking a walk. Sometimes finding the fun in the frostiness helps chase away the seemingly never-ending gloom of bare trees and gray skies.

If that fails, focus on winter’s glistening majesty. The breathtaking glitter of winter is, in my opinion, the best part. Look around at the little things. The way the sunlight makes the heaps of snow into heaps of starlight. The way the snowflakes skip around the sky before touching down to earth. The bell-like tinkling of cracking ice. The unique silence that comes in the woods during winter, a kind of silence that seems to be breathing. The crisp cleanness of the air on cold mornings. The starkness of the sky against the snow on bluebird days. The way the rounded ends of icicles catch the light. Have you ever thought about how icicles look like the tears of rooftops frozen in their falling? Or how birds seem to be celebrating the winter sunlight?

Frequently, I feel stuck in the grim mood of winter. I get to a point where I’m just so tired of the relentless chilliness, and I want nothing more than warmth and plant growth. I feel as frozen as the landscape, and I desperately wish for spring. This feeling comes to me every year, and I never feel that there’s anything I can do about it. This year, however, I hope it will be different. This year, I plan to make an effort to not get stuck in the somber rut of ice and darkness. I want to spend more time walking or nordic skiing in the quietly dazzling winter woods, taking time to appreciate their beauty. I’ll strive to be like the birds, singing my joy into the blue sky.

It’s easy to get caught up in the melancholy of winter, but what’s important is that you can move on from it. Instead of lingering on the desolate spiral of the wintertime, look ahead, because that feeling of stagnancy can be turned into hope for spring. If spring isn’t your thing, maybe hope for another beautiful winter day. Spend time with family and friends, or on your own, and try to appreciate the harsh wonder of winter. If you can get through the bad bits of winter, pretty soon you’ll get to enjoy the nice parts again.

Up in the Adirondacks, we’re lucky. We get to experience a winter that almost nobody else in America gets to experience. I’m trying to treasure as much as I can, and you should, too.

So, with chillier days around the corner, keep this in mind, and have a lovely winter.

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Ellie Henderson is an eighth grader at Saranac Lake Middle School. Their writing has appeared in the Wild Words Teen Anthology and Poem Village.