Surviving Winter…with a Smile!
The winter weather has officially arrived so this month I thought I would write a short article about surviving winter…with a smile! Now that my family and I are living back in Canada, we’ve had to get used to the change of seasons again as well as the onset of winter.
We enjoyed the years that we lived abroad, especially Arizona where we had blue skies and sunshine almost every day, but, believe it or not, we did miss the snowstorms and wintery weather. Winter is going to come whether we like it or not, so best if we learn how to start enjoying it.
It’s amazing how many people around here dread the onset of winter and having to survive in the winter months until spring comes to save them again. It’s hard to go anywhere without hearing someone cursing winter and hoping for it to be over as soon as possible – commentators on the radio, people hunkered down in their jackets walking down the sidewalk muttering to themselves, folks at the adjacent restaurant table gazing out into the blowing snow. Almost everyone seems to dread winter and hopes for it to be over quickly.
I think I’ve discovered the secret to not only surviving winter, but enjoying it as well. It has become my favourite season and in my view, the more snow the better!
The secret is embracing winter in as many ways as possible. If you sit inside your home next to the heater and count down the days until spring, it is going to be a miserable passing and the longest four months of the year, but it doesn’t have to be! The key is to find activities that make the winter enjoyable for you and your family. My wife and I have all kinds of winter activities that we enjoy, individually, together and with our kids as well.
One of the easiest winter activities to get into is snowshoeing. As an adventure seeker, you’d think that I would find snowshoeing to be quite boring but it is surprisingly exciting and can be a ton of fun, especially in the right winter conditions. Scurrying up steep hillsides and jumping off of ledges into the powdery snow below is a blast, and great exercise as well. During winter we also enjoy skating, skiing, snowboarding, building igloos and snow forts, snowmobiling, snowball fights, nordic skiing, sleigh rides, bonfires, tobogganing, pick-up hockey, star gazing, ice fishing and most other winter activities.
This part may seem like common sense…but I’ve learned that common sense isn’t always so common nowadays – Dress for the weather! I’ve noticed those that complain most about the cold are usually the ones that head out time and time again with minimal clothing on and end up nearly freezing. It’s almost like they are trying to give themselves a reason to hate winter!
Don’t be one of those winter haters! You are missing the best season of the entire year if you don’t embrace all there is to do in winter. Get out there and make this winter the best one yet!
“You can’t get too much winter in the winter.” — Robert Frost