from the north country: made by rae
January 31st, 2011
I live in Michigan, and we’ve had a pretty cold winter this year. Entertaining my two small children indoors is starting to make me a little crazy. I just heard that we’re supposed to get a foot of snow in the next two days. I’m not sure how much more of this I can take. So I’m putting together a little list of reasons I love winter to help me keep the ol’ chin up. That way by the time my kids have worn ruts in the floors from running laps around my house, I can look at this and remind myself again why winter in the Midwest is awesome.
my daughter Clementine playing outside in the snow
1. More reasons to buy clothes: When you have four real seasons rather than hot and sorta warm, you need more clothes. And the winter wardrobe is great, soft sweaters, peacoats, corduroy pants, jeans, and a whole category of scarves/hats/gloves with which to accessorize. I even find that since I pack away my summer and winter clothes when the seasons change, I get to surprise myself all over again the next year when I take it out. (Me: “Oh my goodness! I forgot I even OWNED a mustard yellow peacoat!”). OK, so that maybe that reason is a little flaky, but it counts. Onward.
2. Winter-only activities: This may seem obvious, but some of my fondest winter memories from childhood are of sledding down giant snow hills in our driveway, cross country skiing, building snowpeople, and ice skating. It seems like so much work now to get my own kids bundled up to play in the snow, but I have to remind myself that someday they’ll remember it fondly too.
3. Stronger constitution: I’m pretty sure winter makes me a tougher person. There’s definitely an attitude of superiority among Midwesterners when it comes to the weather; we believe (know, actually) that we’ve been given more sturdy composition and mental perseverance for a reason, and we intend to prove it by showing winter it can’t get the best of us. We laugh about how many days it’s been since we’ve seen the sun. Winter makes us stronger, and we like that.
4. The occasional warm day: Normally there are one or two days where winter briefly relaxes it’s icy grip and throws us a bone, a day which seems crazy warm by comparison to those immediately before and after it. And the exuberance with which Midwesterners fling themselves outside in their tank tops as soon as the thermometer clears 50 is really quite admirable. I love those days. The air smells like thawed worms and earth. Yum. (Dear Winter: We haven’t had one of these yet this year. Maybe you could lay off a little?)
yes those are produce rubber bands holding her mittens on
5. I’ll always have you beat: when a friend who lives in a warmer climate complains about cool weather, I just laugh. (Me: “Forty degrees? That’s NOTHING! It was 40 degrees BELOW zero here yesterday. And don’t even get me started on the windchill!” Translation: “You wimp.”) And everyone has some variation of the story about a kid in their elementary school who got their tongue stuck to the tetherball pole during recess. It’s fantastic.
6. Winter is pretty: We’ve had snow on the ground since way before Christmas and I barely notice it’s there anymore, but it’s really quite lovely when I take the time to look at it. Some mornings all the trees have an inch of snow on all of their branches and it looks like everything has been covered with a layer or marshmallow creme. And occasionally all of the trees get coated with a layer of glistening ice that takes your breath away when the sun shines through it.
So, Winter: It’s true I do like you alot. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I love summer alot more. Don’t take it personally.
Rae Hoekstra blogs over at Made By Rae. You can find a (free tutorial) for the Snowblossom Hat shown in the pictures above right here.
Oh, I am so stealing the rubberband idea for my daughter’s mittens. She’s not quite 2 and they never stay on! We’re looking at getting 18 inches in the next two days (In wisconsin) and I’m already bunking down :)
hahahahaha
Rae made my morning. I’m from even further north and we were laughing the other day about how our SUV wound up in the snowbank twice this weekend but made it back out again. And that we got a foot of snow on Friday morning but by Friday afternoon – despite the fact that the plows hadn’t made it out yet – everyone was still driving around busily. In a slidey sort of way.
(Less funny is that the snowbanks are higher than some cars here right now so I almost got pegged pulling off a side street onto a main road because I didn’t see a little car coming. But it was an almost, not an actual.)
Oh Rae, your kids can come run ruts in my floors, too.
It’s 13 so far today; mmmm toasty!
You may have forgotten the most obvious reason to love winter: Guilt-free MOVIE/TV with kids, because eventually there’s simply “nothing else to do.”
Living in Québec, I also get to live through harsh winters.
But I love having 4 seasons, and I love winter, mostly because when it is sunny, the light reflecting on the snow is just the most beautiful thing ever. It is so energizing! I also love watching the snow fall, it is much prettier than rain (and it means it is not that cold outside…).
I also love mulled wine. Enjoy!
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Living in a warm clime, I can only say our turn will come when temps are over 100 for months on end!
I live in a warm climate as well and I am simultaneously wimpy about and jealous of your snowy days. The marshmallow creme comparison, especially.
Rae, I live in Minnesota. People make movies about the snow and winter here (and the accent). I’m not crazy about the lizard skin or the bleeding cuticles or the black ice accidents but I like the quietness and stillness of winter. And that’s coming from a person who lived 30 years in Singapore which is next to the equator and never gets below 80F ever. And I like soups and stews and bread and warm ovens and cookies and pastries that seem somehow wrong in the summer. And I’m not complaining that it’s already January and we can still get honeycrisps in the store. And great blueberries. And I like the idea that some year when the kids are older we can go to Orlando/Anaheim in the winter and have no crowds at Disneyworld/land and it would feel positively balmy to us.
But yes, I’m with you about the cabin fever+small kids = not very good.
Go Rae !!! I really recommend her blog full of lile daily life things, gret tutotial and passion about sewing !!!
Rae: I love #3 and I so miss #4. There was no January Thaw this year! Right before the New Year we saw some snow shrinkage, but none since then and only more on top of the old. Can’t wait for the February sunshine that’s bound to do some melting.
How fun to have two of my favorite reads combining. Meg, I hope you’re enjoying Hawaii, you lucky duck. Rae, I miss the snow. We’ve moved to a place that although further north is lower in elevation. It gets cold, but not quite cold enough for snow. I love the stillness that comes with snow, and wish for it.
I’ve been trying to keep our days busy with a lot of winter-only crafts. Dragging in snow to play with in the kitchen, making ice sun-catchers for outside, and starting off each morning by feeding breakfast to the dozen of birds that come visit our birdfeeder each morning.
Also, I am totally using your tip of the produce rubber bands to keep mittens on. Genius!
Rae, you are darling :) Just a little while left till Spring! We can do it! :)
Yep! MN
Guilt Free hot drinks all day and making giant pots of soup and fresh bread, and then inviting the friends within walking distance over for dinner, snowshoeing (soon with the kids!), hockey and slipping around on the lake ice, the crunch of fresh snow. And we can TRULY appreciate spring when it finally comes around. I can’t imagine living ANYWHERE without four seasons.
OH! And I was reminded this past week by a friend who used to live in Atlanta that they had to hire a monthly exterminator because by about that time, you had enough yucky bugs in your house that you needed one. Go Go Giant LONG FREEZE! Finally, being a past Minnesotan and current Wisconsinite – can i say WINTER CARNIVAL???? :)
Rae, once again you have cracked me up. As I midwesterner (I even spent one winter in MN) transplanted in the mid south, I am almost ashamed to admit what a wuss I have become. Thanks for reminding me. :P HEE HEE!
Rae,
I think your skis are still in my garage!
I’m from MN and I am so with you on the toughness. Southerners are wimps!
LOL! This post made me laugh! I am in Ohio… we are ready to get pounded again! LOL! Right now we have ice… everything is closed or cancelled! :-) And you know it has to be bad around here to cancel… we drive in anything!!! :-) BUT… saying that, I am SOOOOOOOO tired of the greyness…. could handle snow if I had the SUNSHINE!!! We are actually getting ready to move SOUTH… have been here our entire lives and just dont want to do it anymore!
Ha! I love #5!
I’m so with you on number 5 there! I’m in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and we’re no strangers to freezing wind chills! I too am excited for the summer months.
This made my husband and I smile, as we sit here dreading tomorrow’s snow day in Massachusetts. We just made a few molasses cookies, which makes it all seem a little better. Good luck to all of us with children in the northern latitudes.
Love this list. We are in Alaska, and we know cold! When we moved here everyone told us that when it gets back up to the 30’s people wear shorts and t-shirts. Yeah right we thought. It was no joke! When you get -30 and below for months on end zero feels fabulous. It got up to 5 degrees here Saturday and we were driving around with the widows open and the kids were all cheering and asking for their windows to be put down. I love winter, the white snow everywhere, and like someone else said, when it snows it makes me happy because it means it’s warmer! With six kids though I’m looking forward to only having to put the kids flip flops on before we run outside. It takes us a half hour to get to the car once we start putting on boots, jackets and gloves. Only three more months to go for us until we get warm weather and endless sunshine….I can do this…
Stories about the kid who got his tongue stuck to the metal pole?–that was MY KID last winter. He came home from school looking like someone had socked him in the mouth with a 5 carat ring and his t-shirt brown with dried blood. It was awful–but then again, someone has to be the example for all the other kids about what never, ever to do.
I live in Michigan as well. I love your humor! We need that up here….don’t we? I am especially fond of #5. I have used the word “wimp” with several of my southern friends. Hee Hee. Stay warm! :)