I have used both as Ubuntu flavours when I needed a lighter desktop on older hardware. XFCE was absolutely solid, worked and brought new life to the hardware. But, I wanted just a little more pizazz so, I moved to Mate. It was just as quick, felt a bit more modern but it wasn’t as rock solid as XFCE. XFCE is perfect for stability. Mate is more modern but younger so maybe not as solid. It’s been a while since I took either out for a spin though. Time to fire up the VirtualBox I suppose.
Have we considered the snow fell in that pattern? 😲😂