All the things to love about winter...

In no particular order...

• Lacy patterns of frost on your car windows, which you have time to appreciate as you scrape them off every morning.
• Early sunsets mean early bedtimes.
• Hot drinks like hot chocolate, hot cider, and hot tang. (Did I just admit that out loud?)
• Comfy jeans and sweatshirts.
• The annual New Year's Eve countdown (to 8:00) and accompanying smashing of the gingerbread house. (I call dibs on the hard gummi bears.)
• New Years Resolution spreadsheets, calendars, and themes. (I'm considering "Fake it til you make it" or "Spare Me the Drama" for 2011.)
• Closure.
• Winter scented soaps and lotions--peppermint vanilla or grapefruit, depending on if it's night or morning.
• Pink cheeks.
• Hot stew.
• Red cardinals on bare branches.
• Coming in out of the cold.
• winter sunrises
• fleece
• Finding things to look forward to.
• Life going slower.
• Making plans.
• Winter movies (Little Women, While You Were Sleeping, Sleepless in Seattle, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire...)
• Messing up when you write the date of the new year.
• How clean your house can look with all the Christmas decorations put away.
• Getting back into routines and schedules.
• Celebrating greatness in mediocre ways. (When's the last time you went all out for President's Day???)
• At least having Netflix to look forward to in the mail.
• Rearranging rooms and furniture to placate wanderlust.
• Prisms hanging in windows that cast winter rainbows on the walls.
• Super hot showers.
• Waking up early and getting to doze in your warm, comfortable bed with your sweetheart.

Even in winter--there is always so much to love, don't you think?