As we wind down the fall semester and temperatures begin to drop, students everywhere begin to accept the harsh reality of the changing seasons. Gone are the shorts and bouncy sundresses, and here to stay are boots, sweaters and the occasional raincoat. Put simply: winter is coming.
For me, the cold comes in two very distinct and separate waves. There is the pre-Christmas cold season, (readers who don’t celebrate Christmas may replace “Christmas” with their preferred holidays for the remainder of this article) and then, there is the post-Christmas cold season.
The pre-Christmas cold season barely counts as cold. It is a warm up — a tiny taste of the months to come. While technically it’s still fall, after daylight savings the days get dark by dinner time and it’s a few degrees too cold for apple picking and wine tasting. Classes are starting to come to an end, Halloween is over and summer tans have officially faded to their original pallor.
Yet, somehow, in this season we almost enjoy the dropping temperatures; they give us an excuse to cuddle up in baggy sweatpants, spend hours watching movies or Netflix under blankets and sip hot, festive beverages on our way to class. Now that it’s warm enough to dress in layers, you can finally break out that Pinterest-inspired shirt-under-sweater-under-vest look you’ve been waiting to try. Only the truly brave still wear dresses and shorts out at night.
You don’t quite need your winter coat yet and you no longer need to worry about looking good in a bathing suit (RIP bikini season). The best part: we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Each dropping degree signals one day closer to break, family, home-cooked meals and the holiday season. Spirits are high and temperatures are not too low.
Unfortunately, when we arrive back to school in January, we face the evil twin of the pre-Christmas season. Break has ended, there are no looming holidays and temperatures slowly move from cold to unbearably frigid. People walking to class in layered sweaters and to-go coffee cups shrink in number, instead ducking their heads and barreling down roads to class with their hands in their pockets. We must finally memorize the bus schedule.
Where they were once a rare treat, Netflix binge sessions become a way to hibernate from sub-zero temperatures on nights you can’t bear to leave your house. The early darkness has become depressing, your nose runs and, with the exception of the rare and blessed snow day, classes seem further away than last semester. For all the runners out there, you understand the pain of weeks confined to treadmills and crowded gyms.
Our strength will be tested. The very fabric of our humanity will be stretched thin; pushing us over hurdles past limits we did not know existed. We will shiver, we will complain and we will think longingly of the pre-Christmas winter chill.
But, in the end, we will pull through — as we have for many years before. With upbeat attitudes we find ways to enjoy even the coldest of days and eventually spring will arrive to shake off winter’s slumber. In the meantime, we might as well enjoy the pre-Christmas winter while it lasts and have as much fun as we can in the post-Christmas winter season. Together, we will survive both cold seasons and live to see sunlight past 5 p.m once again.
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