I Love Winter (And Hate Summer)

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one here.

Am I?

I love toques (or “beanies” for you southerners) and cozy mitts and knits and hot chocolate and Christmas lights and sparkly snow and Santa and rosy-cheeked kids and sledding.

I love the way the snow crunches underfoot when you walk through a glittery winter wonderland. I love the smell of wood-burning fireplaces that fill the outside air, and the way freshly fallen snow makes everything look clean and new.

I love when it gets really cold and the barren trees get a beautiful coat of hoarfrost in the mornings. I love skating on frosty ice rinks and wearing fleece-lined tights.

Don’t even get me started on my love for eggnog lattes and peppermint mochas.

I live in the Canadian Prairies — it gets cold here. I don’t mind at all, and I don’t know if it’s my nordic roots or just insanity, but I have never cared about the cold weather. If you bundle up, it’s no big deal.

In the prairies, tall grasses turn wheat-field-yellow and get crisp under the snow, where they poke out of the sparkly white stuff like a tiny white flag of surrender. The fields that stretch across the horizon are covered in a brilliant, blinding white blanket that extends as far as the eye can see.

And the trees! I have a serious love for evergreens. They stand, steadfast, carrying the heavy snow on their branches like an elaborate gown of glitter and frost.

I love everything about winter.

Unlike summer.

In summer, when it gets hot, there’s not much you can do to get comfortable.

In summer, laying in the sun is a non-option, between sunstroke and burns (I’m as milky white as you get, so I pretty much burst into flames in the sun) and sweating indoors is no solution.

Also — you have to mow the lawn weekly, as opposed to shovelling, which is only necessary after a snowfall.

Also — bugs. Wasps. Mosquitos. Ticks.

Also — no delicious lattes.

And there are bugs. Did I mention the bugs?

Did I mention that I wear glasses, and bugs, the buggers, have an uncanny knack for flying right up under the lenses, where they bounce around my eyeball and give me a tiny heart attack?

I dislike bugs.

No thank you. Give me winter any day of the week. Give me a snow shovel — I’ll shovel your walk, too, and I’ll even do a little happy jig as I do. For now, though, I think I’ll go for a brisk morning walk and enjoy the fact that I’m not sweating or dying from heatstroke.

Happy wintering!

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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