Christmas gifts. We stress over them. We drive miles for them, spend hours online “perfecting” them. We break budgets, stretch credit, hammer piggy banks buying them.

Still, they sometimes miss the mark. Hence the lines at return counters in stores the week after the holiday.

Of course, a Christmas gift does not have to come giftwrapped. Ask around. No doubt you will find someone so enamored with outdoor recreation that the news that Lake Nighthorse may soon open is now the best gift of the season.

West of Mancos Hill, no doubt, there is someone who feels the same way about the Paths to Mesa Verde, now that the project is underway.

And there are plenty of folks in the Four Corners who will say that their Christmas gift came early, on Election Day.

But how many of us look out the window to greet another gift, the one that, amazingly, is delivered to everyone free of charge?

Yes, it looks to be a white Christmas, which is so much more in these parts than a great song recorded by Bing Crosby in 1942.

It is the crystallized lifeblood of our region, and if it isn’t piling up in the lower valleys, rest assured it is in the high country. It does not arrive every year, making it one of the best gifts of all.

So much more than a key to our winter economy, the snow means water for our communities, for farm and ranch irrigation, rapids for paddlers, steady flows for anglers and river rafters, healthy forests and wildflower riots up high and multiple hay cuttings and bountiful orchards down low. It is a perfect gift, and it truly keeps on giving.

If you just bent a fender, or somebody else’s, it may not seem like it. And it is hard to remember the joy in the gift when you’ve shoveled every bit of limber out of your lumbar.

But what a present, and one to be cherished by all.

Whatever your religion, be you pious or pagan, do not forget to give thanks for the gift of snow this Christmas.