"The snow coming in... It's been kind of a warm week. It's been in the 20s, and a little snow here this last week, a little sliver of moon up in the sky." Marilyn and Bud Bunsen worry about their daughter's unusual plans for the annual Snowball Dance, and a few members of the 1952 Lake Wobegon Leonards football team reminisce about their 1-8 season while visiting Naples, Florida.

"It's been bitterly, bitterly, bitterly cold in Lake Wobegon. It was so cold that they did not do the fire drill up at the high school." A group of Miami tourists arrives in town on a bus tour, Dorothy puts together a last-minute meal for them at the Chatterbox Cafe, and Renee Rasmussen's husband Delbert returns for the first time in years.

"It's been cold, it's been cold. It's been in the low teens--highs in the day. We don't do wind chill in Lake Wobegon. It seems like bragging to us somehow." Memories of the terrible winter of 1951--including sheltering local deer in the high school gym and Seena Halvorson meeting her husband while ice fishing--and Margie and Carl Krebsbach have an awkward encounter with their son, who has just moved home.

"It's been cold out there but it's a dry cold, you know, so it's not painful or anything and of course we are used to it. But, the battle of the thermostat goes on in every house in Lake Wobegon." The town gathers firewood to prepare for the cold weather, Mavis celebrates her 75th birthday in Los Angeles, and Clint Bunsen reflects on missing the opportunity to move to the Southwest.

"We've gotten some snow, even better than that, we've gotten frost--frost, when you have a clear night and you have high humidity, you wake up in the morning and everything is covered with frost." Terrible flu hits Lake Wobegon, memories of ice skating and smoking in the warming house, storytelling around a bonfire on a frozen lake, and the Lutheran church ends the year with a surplus.

"It's been cold and gray, just a little bit of snow falling, children reluctantly going back to school. Lot of things had to be canceled because of that blizzard a couple of weeks ago." Texting disrupts a choir concert, Darlene resolves to find a man this year, and Clint Bunsen visits his wife's uncle in Omaha.

"We got a little snow -- a little snow Monday night. What a beautiful snowfall it was, and not all that cold out." In a monologue from January 2012, warm weather puts those who suffer from "Pump Handle Phobia" at ease. Plus, Mr. Hansen lends a hand around the neighborhood while his wife visits her sister in Florida, and reveals an unusual secret.

"It's been kind gray and cloudy, sort of drizzly, this last week, waiting for snow to come. We've had a little bit of snow but not as much as we deserve." Mrs. Hansen makes an anonymous donation, the Tolleruds are forced to change their Christmas dinner plans when their daughters invite a Brazilian exchange student, and Pastor Liz hosts guests who have nowhere else to go.

"We had our first really good snowfall of the year. It was predicted in the Gospel from St. Luke, which was last Sunday morning." The Lake Wobegon public schools get a snow day, Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church's seasonal decorations cause discomfort in the congregation, Pastor Liz visits the town's elderly residents, and the Bunsens comfort their daughter after her terrible week at work.

"Sort of balmy, balmy weather early in the week and then we got some drizzle and then finally last night we got some snow, snow, beautiful snow." Mavis and Vern continue their relationship despite Irene's objections (and become the talk of the town in the process), Pastor Liz visits elderly residents for the holidays, and the Chatterbox Cafe's potato sausage gives the town a festive aroma.