With Christmas upon us next weekend, it’s beginning to feel a lot like winter. Somehow it seems easier for me to accept the cold and snow when the calendar tells me it’s late December.

     Now that summer’s warmth and fall’s bright colors are but a memory, I’m ready to settle in and enjoy winter.  Snow-capped evergreens, fluffy white yards and frosty-whiskered horses give the season a beauty of its own.

   And although I don’t like the cold that comes with the winter wonderland, I am resisting the urge to curl up on the couch and instead, going out about my days pretty much the same way I do the rest of the year. Between farm chores, school events and attending our sons’ wrestling matches, the days fly by and I have little time to dwell on the near-zero or subzero temperatures.  

    During the next month, I will likely not only have accepted winter, but will embrace it. Our children love to go sledding at Turtle River State Park and I plan to go with them. Trudging up the hill is great exercise and flying down it still gives me a thrill, just as it did when I went sledding at the park as a child.

    This year, I’d also like to try cross-country skiing again (I skied pretty frequently about 30 years ago) and learn to snowshoe.  Although living in a wam climate sometimes sounds tempting to me, I know I really would miss the beauty and recreation that are unique to winter.