As I was reading you, in my mind the same question you left at the end was asked: "Are you a winter or summer person?".
Especially for your joy to wake up and find the snow, for me it would be the beginning of something bad hahaha where I live it is very rare that snow falls, and when it happens despite the beautiful and impressive always begin to fail some services, because the city is not conditioned for it.
Also my first thought is how cold it will be for me to walk around, because I usually go out walking a lot. hahaha I definitely think I'm a person of less freezing temperatures.
As for the gas I share your concern, here in Spain the cost is also exaggerated, we have had a hard time during this winter because the regular citizen can not afford to pay the prices, so we are also going through some cold times.
It's hard to say whether I'm a winter or summer person because both seasons have pros and cons and perhaps I'm somewhere in the middle. But the joy seeing the first snow of the year is definitely something that is hard to be replaced :)