vinter sjel • winter soul

If you happen to be around me when it's snowing, you will find out that I have a favorite season; no matter how much I love the others, Winter takes the cake. Perhaps I am influenced egotistically by my Christmas Eve birthday. Or perhaps growing up in the harsh winters of Minnesota forced me to find the good in the cold, snowy fate awaiting us from November to April.

I recently read this and learned that the Norwegians have an expression for their fondness for the cozy, happy aspects of winter in their near-Arctic communities: koselig, a word for which English is really lacking a counterpart. I should coin something to express how I feel about the sweet stillness of winter nights, the crisp way the air brightens your cheeks on a walk, the perpetual-twilight made by the reflection of snow in the night, the warmth of the oven filled with good things to eat, the crackling fire that mesmerizes you as you converse with friends, the clean freshness of each new snowfall, and the drowsy comfort of a warm bed in a chilly house. What word could encompass all that and the countless other little emotions tied to a festive season of tucking in together and giving thanks for the year's blessings, in hopeful expectation of the new gifts to come with Spring? Maybe in English one word can't unify all that, because English speakers are scattered throughout every climate and don't have that same shared experience that would allow just one word to make sense to all. I should have been born in Norway.

I sat here in front of this screen trying to come up with a word anyway. Failure. If you can think of one, please share. I got nothin. 

When I talk about this with friends and neighbors in this cold Midwest, most of them don't get it at all. The only shared experience of winter for them is a mutual hatred of cold, impatience with the tedium of snow, and enjoyment in commiserating about it. I am sorry if you feel that way; I think you're really missing out on an entire season and the joys it has to offer.

The joys of winter are here already in these parts. Friday brought the first snow of the year in a decisive way. No sooner did the last trees shed the leaves of their peak autumnal glory, than a foot of snow fell to close the gap of fall and winter. We're half a week away from thanksgiving and I have already had my minivan snowed-into a garage stall, got the family all geared up in full snowsuited glory, and trudged through snow banks in rural South Dakota.

Saturday morning we went out to a friend's farm with the dual purpose of foraging greens for a wreath and affording my hunter husband a chance to bag a pheasant. He didn't get a bird, and I didn't get a ton of greens on the farm (I did end up getting some really lovely juniper clippings from some rural ditches on our drive home) but it was a lovely morning in the fresh, deep snow, and it was Roger's very first interaction with snow. He wasn't amused when he fell over in his thick snow suit and didn't know how to get up, nor when he got snow on his wrists inside his mittens and realized how very cold it is. It was just a little too deep for him to walk through, so either Dave or I carried him most of the time. 

The gathered greens were really horrible to work with, as they were not the soft fir or cedar I would have liked to find, but the wreath turned out pretty nice, I think, in a rustic way. The juniper smells so nice and there are even a few blue juniper berries. I posted a snarky photo of myself making the wreath on the floor of my bathroom Saturday night, because I never get craftsy and when I do it's SO not the idealized, Instagram-worthy kind of craftsy where all my organic clippings and tools scattered in my workspace have a nice, natural aesthetic that screams #livefolk. Ha. You'll notice I didn't include the floor of my bathroom (or the pine-cluttered tub) in the photo. 

After the wreath was hung, I used the rest of my greenery to decorate on shelves out of Roger's reach. We probably just won't even mess with a Christmas tree this year... Our's is so little and wobbly, Roger would destroy it in about two seconds. But I like our tiny apartment's Christmas decor as it is, and I'm happy it's done so we can get right into a festive spirit next weekend when we return from Thanksgiving travels in MN/WI. 

Whether I will be punctual in taking down the Christmas decor is another story. February may need a little koselig to keep us in the cozy, enjoyable mood for winter.