Those little pressboard squares with the white sort-of-grippy side that holds onto the glass until you pull at them just so: clearly those were for helping protect the new window in transportation.

The first thing I peeled off was that big label at upper right, and then, and surprisingly reluctantly, those little squares. Or at least the ones I could reach. Why on earth didn’t I want to?

It took me awhile to figure out why they so charmed me: they’re as close to watching the snowflakes fall as we’re going to get here at Christmastime. We have memories of turning on George Winston’s December album, turning the lights off, and sitting at a slider glass door far away from here with our babies in our laps watching the unique, repetitive, cold, blanketing snow reflecting in the dark off the layer that had settled before it as it floated and stirred gently on its way down.

Although. (Picking one up.) These’d be great for extra blank squares in a game of Scrabble.