Five on Friday: If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say . . .

I know it's not technically winter yet, but let's face it: it's winter. We've had snow. We've had a lot of winter holiday traditions. It's cold.

I hate the cold. My husband and I were talking yesterday about if we'd rather be too hot or too cold (hot. always.) and then extending that to would we rather die via too much heat or too much cold. He doubted that I'd still prefer heat in that scenario and then I reminded him that during the winter I can wear two pairs of wool socks and lay under piles of blankets and still feel like my toes are tiny little digits made of ice. It's miserable.

So I can get a little grumpy as the weather gets colder. Optimist me has decided to come up with a list of things I do like about this time of the year. There must be some good things!! Let's see . . .

1. Hats. Hats are cute. It's not fair for my wide-brimmed sun hats to get all the usage I guess.

2. Fire in the fireplace. Sure, I now constantly smell like I just got back from a camping trip but look how nice:

3.  The snow is . . . pretty at least. Particularly in my backyard before the children start trampling it:

4. Traditions. For some reason the cold-weather holidays have so many more traditions attached to them than any of the other holidays. Probably it's too cold outside to be busy with anything else. I do love them all, particularly the ones that our family has created for ourselves (like epic gingerbread creations, hand print construction paper Christmas trees and taking a gaggle of kids to wrap gifts for the residents at the Developmental Center)

 
5. The sunrises are also particularly pretty this time of year. Because of the time change? The season? Climate change? Santa's magic? I don't care why, I just know that seeing scenes like this every morning when I wake up and start my coffee really help me start the day with a smile and gratitude, even if my toes are frozen.