Having lived in New England for just over two years now, I still haven’t gotten acquainted with the winter weather. I spent most of my life so far in Upstate New York that I’m very well acquainted with lake effect snow. Either way, weather-wise, I’m used to the challenge posed by nature. As a commuter student, I dread the snow because the less I have to deal with, the better. Outside of that, I don’t mind it for the first week or so, it’s fun to go sledding or have a snowball war with friends, but I quickly grow tired of the snow. The best part of the season is when it’s just started to drop in temperature (but it’s still manageable) and the wood stoves are fired up for the first time. Winter is good for something. I would argue for wood stoves and nostalgia. Winter always reminds me of:

1. Pajamas on Christmas Eve

When we were little my grandmother used to always come over the night before Christmas and we would each open one gift. Every year they were a new pair of pajamas, and we would of course wear them right then or there.

2. Making Peanut Butter Balls at Grandma’s

Christmas is a big thing for families, so it’s no surprise my grandmother is popping up again! Another one of our traditions became spending an afternoon with her in the kitchen making what seemed like endless peanut butter balls … they only seemed endless when we were making them. They always disappeared too quickly after.

3. Candlelight Christmas Services

This is the last Christmas related item, I swear! But I used to love these services, not even for the sermon or “churchy” aspect, I just loved the glow of the candles and the quiet of the room. These services always made me think about the passing of time and everything I had done the previous year. I’d stare at my burning candle and think “next year I’ll remember doing this” all while remembering doing so the previous year. It’s very strange, but something I got used to.

4. How Beautiful Solitude Can Be

I love winter sunsets, especially when they’re over the water. The landscape may seem harsh when it gets cold and the snow is a few days old, but the water sometimes settles into a glassy calm that compliments the sky so perfectly in the right moment — it’s hard not to look forward to it. Much like standing at the edge of the ocean, you feel small next to such extraordinary beauty, and it’s really peaceful.

5. How Beautiful Quiet Can Be

When you’re looking at that sunset, it’s hard to feel alone if it’s not quiet. I find quiet in these moments essential, it’s nice to just breathe and pay attention to the world around you, the sounds of nature that become too normalized we don’t truly hear them for spans of time that can be far too long.

6. Candles!

I may or may not have an unhealthy obsession with candles. But with Winter, it’s the small glow that I find immensely comforting.

7. The Power of a Good Book

Now that I’m in college and busy with other things I don’t have a lot of time to read, but I remember many nights in the winter bundled up in bed with a book. I’d often have a stack right by me, just because it felt right.

8. How Much I Love My Dogs

My oldest dog is puffy and white, and of course named Snowball. We call her Snowy. Naturally, out of the two of them, she loves the snow the most. Murphy just stands there and shakes while looking upset with having to be cold. Snowy prances in the snow like some sort of gazelle-dog hybrid, and then she rolls around in it for good measure.

9. The Power of Hot Chocolate

My mother runs a home daycare, she’s done so since I was four. It was always fun to see the babies first play in the snow, and of course all the other little ones. They loved building snowmen and building forts. But the smiles on their faces when they came inside for hot chocolate were the absolute best.

10. Trying to Make Shoveling Snow Fun

Because my mother runs a home daycare, we have to have every exit shoveled out to a specific area away from the house. This meant shoveling off both porches and then creating a path through the yard to a gathering spot you could access from both points. Really, the only way to make this fun was if you terrorized the sibling that was helping you out. We usually settled on telling jokes as a way to avoid too much snow down the shirt.

11. Time Passes

Winter may seem bleak, especially when the cold lasts forever and the shoveling seems endless, but spring always follows, and those first few warm days that only promise more of the same are certainly special. It always reminds me that things are always moving forward