Our sunny warm day here in West Texas has dropped from 75 degrees to 45 tonite, and the chilly wind reminds us that autumn will soon be drawing to a close.
I love Fall, but the thought of cold gray days to come makes me sad. I know my Midwest family and Northeast friends laugh when I call 40’s cold, we are admittedly spoiled here and more acclimated to heat. We typically get very few snow days, and it usually thaws within a day or so.
I don’t miss the sub-zero cold of my growing up years in South Dakota, and I certainly don’t miss driving on ice covered roads! I do have to admit that I miss the magic of that first big snowfall, and Christmas will never feel like Christmas to me when our landscape is brown and dry and we are outside in sweaters or lightweight jackets. I miss seeing my breath frosty in the air, and hearing the snow crunch underfoot.
Winter, and the approaching holiday season, is not my favorite time of the year for a lot of reasons, some of them personal, memories I’d rather not remember, and family too spread out to gather.
My father passed at the end of December, and my mother passed early in January… funerals on bitter cold days in Dakota, more sad memories. I usually manage to shake off the winter blues about mid-January.
This year I plan to do better, to keep my mind active and stay busy, and to do fun things for family and friends. In other words, to spend less time thinking about myself and more time thinking about others. An attitude adjustment might just be the best Christmas present I could give myself! 🙂
– JTS-