The song begins with the snow falling Christmas Eve. That is a joyous time and a white Christmas evokes feelings of love, family, and kindness. The last verse is about things lost that can't be recovered. "I felt that old familiar pain." They tried to reach beyond the emptiness and recover some of what they had, but time had created a divide that could not be breached. The traditional song "Auld Lang Syne" poses the rhetorical question about whether old friendships and love should be forgotten. Auld Lang Syne is Scottish and imprecisely translated as "old long since" or the olden times. They lived a moment of eloquence, trying to reach beyond the divide but realized it couldn't be recovered. They were living an Auld Lang Syne moment remembering the past and the love that was shared. It couldn't be sustained in the present. And so the Christmas snow turned into rain.