We’re in a deep freeze here in Colorado. It snowed overnight a few days ago, and on that same night, the temps dropped below zero and stayed that way for several days.
I like all of this for several reasons:
- The transplant Californians complain about the cold, while the native Coloradoans talk about the good old days, when it was always this cold and snowy (jk)
- The snow is crunchy under the tires and makes a midwinter noise that I like
- The snow stays white and fluffy
- There is frost inside the window panes
- I don’t have to work out, because it really is too cold to exercise outside, and I don’t have a treadmill
- I get to wear my ridiculously puffy down coat without sweating
- I get to wear the dark green Sorels that Dave bought me for Christmas twenty years ago
- We burn the fireplace all day long
- I feel useful, while little birds feast on the seed I put out
- The cold and snow slow me down, and I live in the present reality of Advent
On this note: Dan passed this on to us– An essay worth reading: The End of Advent. Here’s an excerpt:
More than any other holiday, Christmas seems to need its setting in the church year, for without it we have a diminishment of language, a diminishment of culture, and a diminishment of imagination. The Jesse trees and the Advent calendars, St. Martin’s Fast and St. Nicholas’ Feast, Gaudete Sunday, the childless crèches, the candle wreaths, the vigil of Christmas Eve: They give a shape to the anticipation of the season. They discipline the ideas and emotions that otherwise would shake themselves to pieces, like a flywheel wobbling wilder and wilder till it finally snaps off its axle.
