The seasons are changing, and it got me thinking.
Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a fan of winter. In fact, I freaking hate winter. It doesn’t help that I have a condition that makes my fingers turn blue and lose feeling when the temperature dips below 50 degrees. I don’t ski. I don’t snowmobile, although I did as a tween and loved it then. I don’t snowshoe, winter hike, or ice fish. I sit, I pout, I pine for warmer weather.
But I digress.
The shorter, cooler days have me thinking about the season change and the impending arrival of winter. This fall has been warmer than usual, and the trees seem to be embracing the weather judging by their vibrant colors.
I’ve put my flowerbed to sleep and overseeded my lawn. I’ve pulled my cozy sweaters to the front of my closet and swapped my sandals out for ankle boots.
Fall preparation when I was growing up included harvesting the corn we grew, preserving the vegetables from our garden, and cracking piles of black walnuts and freezing the nuts.
Fall was also time for my sisters and me to all start sharing the only upstairs bedroom that had heat again. In the summer, each of us had our own room. In the winter, we slept two or three to one bed, depending on how many of us were still at home. Since I was youngest and smallest, I slept in the middle when it was the three of us. One of my sisters kicked, snored and drooled in her sleep. The other complained about my “sweaty little body” and kept pushing me away. That same sister, however, would use my body heat to warm up her icy feet when first crawling into bed. Each morning, the windows would be covered with a lace of frost. The air in the bedroom some mornings was cold enough that we could see our breath. Many times, we would get dressed under the covers to make use of our remaining body heat. I don’t miss those days.
There are a few things about fall that I enjoy. One of them is Halloween. Halloween this year was a balmy high 50s and the rain held off for all the little treat-seekers. I spent Halloween evening at my son’s house with his family, my daughter and her boyfriend, my ex-husband and his second wife, and my daughter-in-law’s parents. I enjoyed seeing my grandchildren dressed up in their costumes and it was a nice evening sitting around a firepit in the driveway. I even dressed up this year. One of my granddaughter’s favorite books is about dinosaurs marching, so I opted for a dinosaur costume. My granddaughter ran to me when I arrived in costume, and we did the dinosaur march together, giggling, while my son sang the dinosaur march song.
I usually paint pumpkins instead of carving them for Jack-O-Lanterns. Besides being a safer alternative for me than carving, the painted pumpkin is used later to make pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving. My daughter always hated painting pumpkins when she was growing up, and there was more than one year in the past where her contribution to the Jack-O-Lantern photos was an unpainted pumpkin. This year, she painted pumpkins with her boyfriend and sent me pictures. They were adorable! I’m glad this family tradition survived another generation, even if it was slow in coming.
The mid-term elections are over, heralding the switch-over from political ads to Christmas songs on the radio. Now it’s time to start planning for Thanksgiving and Christmas and the long, cold months ahead.