Last Monday was December 21st - the Winter Solstice, or the shortest day of the year (in the Northern Hemisphere). The 21st would also have also been the first day of NivÃ´se, the first winter month of the long-abandoned French Republican Calendar, named after the Latin word nivosus, which, appropriately means "snow or snowy". Collected here are a handful of recent photographs of these snowy days for those of us in the north.