Christmas Eve snow yields fun and hopes for a white Christmas in tri-state area

NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. (PIX11) -- The tri-state region was blanketed with snow on Christmas Eve morning, and even though that blanket was thin, it caused some flight delays, and made getting around on area roads, and even sidewalks challenging at times.

However, for many people across the region, the inch or two of snow was well-received, particularly because kids were out of school, and because it came on the day before the big holiday.

"After looking out the window, and [I] saw that it was snowing," said Alex Zain, a fifth grader who was playing in Davenport Park in New Rochelle, "Immediately I'm thinking sledding."

That was the main activity in the quarter-mile-long park that slopes down to a beach on Long Island Sound. 

It's quite popular for its sledding hill, but for it to receive just enough snowpack on Christmas Eve made it an even more prized destination, as Micheal Buckley, a dad who lives in this suburban city, explained. 

"The kids were demanding to go sledding," he said from the top of the slope, "and we got just enough to get them down this hill." 

He and the three kids he'd brought with him spent more than two hours sledding and packing snow.

Sammi Zain, another dad in the park, said that the layer that covered the hill was "the right kind of snow."

He said that it was good for packing, and he should know. He'd instructed his elementary school-aged son and daughter how to roll snowballs into boulder-sized orbs in order to build snowmen and other snow statues. 

"It's not the quantity" of the snow, Zain said. "It's the quality."

His 6-year-old daughter, Lianna, agreed, as she picked up, and then condensed, a handful of snow. 

"Look how strong it is," she said. "It doesn't even break." 

It held together nicely as Lianna, her brother Alex, and their dad stacked the snow boulders they'd made into a snow cat and a snow kitten, as opposed to snowmen. 

"We just got lucky to get more snow," said Lianna.  

Based on the dozens of people, young and old, who'd come to the Davenport Park sledding hill on Christmas Eve, there was widespread agreement with what the kindergartner had said.

There was also consensus that keeping the snow cover into Christmas Day was vital. 

A white Christmas was on the minds of most people who spoke with PIX11 News on Tuesday. 

A first grader named Olivia explained why a white Christmas is so important.

"Because at the North Pole," she said, "it snows a lot."

Most of the tri-state region appears on course to look like the North Pole on the holiday, which means it will also be a white first night of Hanukkah, which is also on Wednesday. Forecast subfreezing temperatures may also keep some snow on the ground when Kwanzaa begins on Thursday.