It snowed for the first time here on Saturday. The check-out guy at the little grocery store where I shop told me he was disappointed about it because he is still in college, and a Saturday snowstorm wouldn’t get any of his classes canceled. He was pretty bummed.

I know what he means. There’s something about a snow day that’s better than a vacation or a day off or a weekend. You’re expected to do nothing, to plan nothing and instead spend the day building snowmen and drinking hot cocoa. It’s more exciting than I like to admit refreshing your Weather Channel browser, waiting for the next school closing or inch of snow to fall.

Last year, Seattle had an epic snowstorm—by Seattle standards anyway—and the high school where I worked was closed for three days. It was like some youthful reprieve for the real world—exactly how I felt about snow days when I was a kid, especially because I lived on a steep hill and couldn’t drive. Everyone seemed particularly gleeful when they’d venture out of their apartments and step gingerly across the icy sidewalks to buy pho from Vietnamese restaurants and Swiss Miss from the corner groceries. It was like we were all kids again, marooned in our own apartment islands.

There’s definitely something nostalgic about snow days, particularly because kid-like behavior is encouraged and perpetuated. Those of us lucky enough to grow up in snowy climates remember building forts in the backyards, snow pants and wet gloves, snowball fights and sledding down the hill in neon-colored sleds. Snow days are when you meet up with your neighborhood friends and see if the ice on the neighborhood pond is frozen yet. When you bring in snow and put honey and milk into it, much to your parents’ chagrin. See, I’m getting nostalgic just thinking about it.

And if you think about it, we still get to do those things as adults when it snows. I see adults building snowmen and having snowball fights in their front yards, whether they have kids with them or not. Seattle definitely had a bunch of—grouchy!—adult snowboarders backing up traffic this season, something they couldn’t do when their parents told them to be on their best behavior. It’s like adult snow days are a bit wilder, probably a bit boozier, and a bit more dangerous than they were when we were kids. But fun in the same way.