Winter

We were discussing the other day how there may actually be some people in the world who have never truly experienced winter in all its glory. They possibly have never shoveled snow. Maybe they have never slipped and fallen on a giant patch of ice and awkwardly tried to catch themselves before falling backwards onto their bum in a painful and terribly embarrassing way (not that I'm speaking from experience or anything). It's even conceivable that there are people out there who have never had to start their car 15 minutes before leaving their home, just to make sure the doors aren't frozen shut and their children don't get hypothermia just driving from home to the school. Or never even had to scrape every window of their vehicle, the kind where you think you've scraped but in actuality the top ice layer has only been removed, and that tricky under layer is still there, only to be removed by another 15 minutes of running the vehicle with the defrost on high. They may be able to leave their house with all their children just wearing a light sweater and shoes, as opposed to the winter uniform of snowpants, winter coat, toque, waterproof mitts, scarf, and giant boots. When these people look out their window in the mornings, I imagine they don't hold their breath wondering if it has snowed again in the night, and if so, how cold it is, and if they will need to dig their vehicle out of a giant drift due to the 90 km/h winds outside. I know for a fact that they don't know what a block heater is, nor have they had to experience trying to unwind the cord to plug it into their car when it's -30 outside and the cord is frozen in whatever shape it was in when they left their house 30 seconds earlier. To these people I only have one thing to say...

I'm sorry.

Because in addition to not experiencing any of those things, they also have perhaps never experienced any of this:





I'll admit, sometimes I'd rather be inside the house drinking hot chocolate than outside taking these pictures, but if donning my "winter uniform" gives me the chance to experience winter the way my kids (and husband) do, with the sheer joy and reckless abandon they have, then I guess I'm willing to do that. And if scraping my car means then I can drive my kids to the hill to go sledding, then I'll pay that price as well. I'm certainly not implying that our kids couldn't have just as much fun playing at a sunny beach in California in January, but since we are Canadians (and proud to be!), we will embrace our winter, and find as much joy in it as we can. Bring it on, winter. We're ready for you!