Winter

I love summer, something probably having to do with my being born in May. If summer could go on all year I would be happy. Summer is my season, and I really, really dread the onset of winter. From the heat of August, it looks so dismal to me: the cold weather, short days, dark nights, the holidays that never quite meet your expectations. And yet here we are, and somehow in the midst of it I never hate it as much as I think I will. Winter/the holidays is something I have to be coaxed into enjoying every year, but I usually come around. The weather is usually not as bad as I think it will be. This is El Paso, after all, and it gets cold but not snow-y cold the way I imagine it does in other places. Today the high is about 70 degrees, there's a beautiful clear blue sky, and it's just about perfect. And despite all my humbugging about the empty crass commercialism of Christmas, I get sucked into it just as much as everyone else. The process of buying presents always ends up occupying me for about a month. There's really no point in denying the fun of trying to pick out just the right things for other people, and getting presents for myself is, of course, not a bad bonus. As for the long nights, those bother me more than anything else, but if I turn on the TV, toss a log into the fireplace, and serve myself another piece of pumpkin pie, they're not so bad. In fact, they're almost *gasp* enjoyable.

So I think I've made my peace with winter for this year. I don't see it as such an unwelcome visitor, spoiling my summer fun. Which will last until next summer arrives and I realize how great it is and then have to go through the process all over again.