Winter: One of My Favorite Things

I really believe I was born in the wrong state.  Don't get me wrong, I love being a Jersey girl; I've built a really nice life here.  In fact the only thing (besides astronomical taxes) I can't stand is the long, humid sticky summers.  I hate heat, humid or not, period.  Don't even suggest that I wouldn't mind a "dry heat."  Heat is heat is heat!  I realize that New Jersey summers pale in comparison to the Gulf Coast states or any country smack in the middle of the Equator.  God bless the folks who live there and God Speed; don't take it personally but I'd rather reside in Antarctica than near you guys. 

I'm exaggerating of course.  Antarctica is not for people.  It's for penguins, elephant walruses and seals.  Occasionally it's for nutty explorers some who lived to talk about how damn cold it is there and some who succumbed, entombed in some giant iceberg.  Having constant static hair and adding ten pounds to my frame wearing long johns everyday is enough to keep me away.  Enough about about the largest, highest, coldest driest continent in the world.  I'd like to live way up north.  Canada for example.  Labrador maybe.  Or Manitoba.  Somewhere where humidity is non-existent.  Put it this way, I'd like to live anywhere where you can ice skate year round.  I don't care if it's in a t-shirt and jeans, I don't mind a thaw because shoveling year round would damn near kill me.  My ideal atmosphere is no hotter than 58 degrees. 

I probably just could've gotten to the point and just told you I like the cold.  But my overactive brain wanders and you wandered with me to Antarctica for a wee bit.  Anyway, I was born in January, in a blizzard and had my birthday parties as a kid outside with my friends.  When I say party I mean hard-core snowball fights.  We'd only stop when one of us kids yelled "UNCLE!"  Typically that kid was me because I needed a hot chocolate fix or needed to use the bathroom. 

I love winter!!!  Maybe that renders me slightly mentally defective but I don't care.  It's funny, when people tell me that they love to walk around in flip-flops, sunbathe or swim in the ocean, it translates to me as such: "Hey Lisa, I love sweaty feet in shoes that last all of three months.  I totally dig a horrible sunburn while I sweat like a pig and I'm dying to know what it feels like to be mauled by a Great White!  My winterized brain does not compute. 

It's true that so many wonderful memories were made in the winter months.  I would say my own birth but I honestly can't recall the event.  I am the light of my parents' life so there's your proof.  My kids were born in winter.  Apparently me and my husband had a lot of free time on our hands an drank wine heavily during the spring.  Snow days!  What snow day for a kid isn't a great memory?  Me and my sister would watch Storm Field on channel 7 the night before praying for "inclement weather."  That was the term the school used so we assumed it meant snow.  Remember how awesome it was to hear the phone ringing at 4AM?  You'd hear mom or dad slam down the phone.  That was the sure signal we'd be staying home.  I don't even mind them today when my kids are off; some days I just don't feel like dragging my butt out of bed and lugging three of them to school.  I got married in, well, wintry conditions.  Technically not after the winter solstice but it did flurry and it was freakishly cold.  I am sadistic and insisted on wedding pictures taken outside!

So now that I've beaten it into your heads that I love winter, in the spirit of "some of my favorite things" let me tell you why:

• Ice skating on frozen lakes
• Drinking hot chocolate, with marshmallows
• Fleece blankets
• Feety pajamas
• Watching the snowfall from in front of the fireplace
• Hearing the soft patter of snow as I fall asleep
• Making snowmen (standing on their heads)
• Roasting chestnuts
• Sledding on tire tubes
• Icicles (yes, licking them!)
• Watching my dog prance around in the snow
• Wearing crazy knitted hats made by yours truly
• Putting on Hello Kitty snow boots (not just for snow!)

The my most favorite thing about winter, plopping down in two feet of snow on my front yard.  Hearing that "thoomph" sound.  Feeling the snowflakes tickle your face feeling like I was ten again.  The five of us making snow angels in the landscape.  Simply, priceless...