Looks like a frigid Christmas awaits us next weekend as the 40-degree high temperatures will plunge more than 20 degrees with a high of only 21 with an overnight low of nine degrees on Christmas Eve and a high of 27 on the 25th of December, predicts the National Weather Service office in Blacksburg.

The weather service also forecasts freezing rain on Thursday morning, tapering off to just cold wet stuff during the day, a warning to last-minute Christmas shoppers.

For the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, the “arctic blast” is expected to ease with temperatures claiming back into the 30s, the 40s, and a predicted high of 48 when we send 2022 packing and welcome 2023 Saturday night.

The bad news is forecasts of showers through the New Year’s Eve weekend and into 2023.

Got any good New Year’s resolutions? Ours is just one: Give up resolutions. They will be broken in a week anyway. Besides, resolutions suggested by our readers include:

• Taking a long walk off a short plank;
• Go back to wherever you came from;
• Go to a place where it is very, very hot, run by a guy with horns and a pitchfork;
• And so on…

Seriously, please have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.