The warm yellow tulips rise defiantly from a clear vase set on a green tablecloth on my dining room table.
It’s a talisman giving me hope that spring is on the way
Christmas always helps us through the first weeks of winter. We are too busy buying gifts, listening to carols, marveling in the lights and decorations. Snow and ice are just another glistening trimmings of the season. And there are gifts of new coats, scarves and mittens to cope with the cold.
Now that the holidays are gone, there’s nothing to look forward to in the coming frigid weeks but defrosting your car each morning, wet cold shoes and gray skies. In the local news, there’ll also be increasingly grim talk of tightening municipal budgets and the political stirrings of town elections.
It’s time to find some coping mechanisms for these winter days.
You can choose to embrace the weather. This is easier said than done and easiest if you are a skier, snowboarder or ice skater. I, alas, am none of the above.
Instead, I have been looking to find small, hopeful pleasures on cold gray days.
My best yet has been discovering my African violets in bloom again. Quite a feat for someone as horticulturally challenged as myself. The sight of those deep blue petals rising where dry withered ones were so recently is my tiny glimpse of spring to come.
I’ve also taken up feeding the birds. After one of the last storms we (my cat, Samantha, and I) heard chirping outside the front window. (Well, actually the cat heard it first). How awful to be a bird in that weather. I immediately began saving the crusts of my daughter’s sandwiches and tossed them out the door to a rhododendron bush outside the living room window.
My offering has been met with great enthusiasm by the birds. I’ve since supplemented my offering with a suet feeder and seeds. Samantha and I enjoy watching the birds in the mornings. (Though probably for very different reasons.) The earlier I peek, the more interesting varieties I can spy. Maybe I’ll eventually know and recognize the sparrows from the woodpeckers.
One thing I found I missed about the Christmas season is the anticipation of cards and packages in the mail. So when browsing the countless retail e-mails advertising post-holiday sales, it struck me — why not order something else. So I ordered some calendars, then a shirt on sale. I kept it simple. January, the month after Christmas, is always a closely budgeted one for most of us. It was fun to again await a package each day that wasn’t a bill or an advertisement.
