It’s Thursday morning and weather forecasters have just announced some of the best news of the month, possibly the entire year.

Snow is predicted later today.

Of course rain is also forecast for Friday morning, but perhaps that’s the one bit of news our meteorological colleagues will have wrong.

One can wish, can’t he? It is the holiday season, after all.

But while I am celebrating, and not too quietly in the newsroom I might add, not everyone takes to such news with the same enthusiasm. As perplexing as it may seem, there are actually people who lament the very prospect of snow. Shivering with the thought of icy roads, wet shoes and chilly temperatures, they turn their heads to the heavens and mutter their objections.

For myself, snow will always be regarded with a sense of wonder. Having grown up in Hawaii, white Christmases were something only found in story books and on television. Don’t get me wrong; the spirit was, and is still, there. In fact, the islands positively ring with Christmas: Santa Claus is in every mall, houses are draped with lights by the thousands and the streets are alive with carolers singing local favorites, such as “Mele Kalikimaka” and a variation of the “Twelve Days of Christmas,” which begins, “On the first day of Christmas my tutu (slang for grandmother) gave to me, one myna bird in one papaya tree.”

Very cool, yes, but there was no snow. Ever.

My first white holiday, spent in Everett visiting my grandparents, was perfectly awesome. My sister and I made snow angels, snowmen in the yard — the proper technique was demonstrated by my uncle — and of course, we had the long-imagined snowball fight.

Since then, I’ve lived in places where winter temperatures dip to 40 degrees below zero, locales so cold that school buses stop running only when a breakdown would put students in jeopardy of freezing to death. Of course Christmas there had a magic of its own, just like Hawaii.

But on Whidbey Island, there is no such danger and always a chance for snow. In my not-so-humble opinion, that makes this the best place to be this holiday season.

So wherever you stand on the issue, know that my hopes Thursday were for wet shoes and chilly climes.

Editor’s note, Friday before press time: Wet shoes! Whidbey Island rocks.