Winter is my second favorite season, autumn being my favorite.
Even here, we have a good dispersal of hardwood trees in with the evergreens, and we get a good mix of leaf changes with the green.
We really get few days of what I'd call "winter" (i.e. below 32 F), so it's like a long autumn for me. The thing I really miss is the deep scent of the soil that I used to enjoy in New England. But it isn't worth living there just for that.
Maybe in the future I'll get to move to Idaho or Montana and enjoy a nice winter with snow and all.
I'm not into the holiday as such, but Halloween always marked the finest time of the year for me, and growing up in New England, it was a magical time. A time when almost all the leaves had fallen, and you could be deep int he forest,a nd still see quite a ways. It was great camping on big thick piles of bright colored leaves. You really begin to enjoy the smell of a wood fire, and there usually wasn't much, if any snow on the ground yet.
Thanksgiving was the herald of winter. There was usually some snow, and of course the time to get together with loved ones and eat like a gorging bear. Those were my two favorite days of the year.
Now, I get no more snow, the loved ones are gone. i guess it's the memories that make this my favorite part of the year, and the looking forward to when I may once again have a life.