Help for the “winter blues”

I’ve mentioned and I’ve seen others mention having trouble with the “winter blues.” The excitement of Christmas is over and the landscape is drab and dreary for the next several weeks. What can we do to lessen “the blues” this time of year? Here are a few ideas:

• Start a project — building, sewing, some type of craft.
• Bake cookies.
• Curl up with a good book and a cup of your favorite hot drink.
• Plan what you’ll plant in the spring.
• Write — a letter, a blog post, an article. Or start that novel you’ve been dreaming about.
• Look up your family history.
• Do something with all those old photos you took before you got your digital camera.
• Volunteer — check with hospitals, nursing homes, crisis pregnancy centers, etc.
• Meet a friend for lunch or invite them over.
• Experiment with a new recipe.
• Work through a DVD series of a favorite program or one you missed.
• Do a Bible study on “cold” or “snow” or “winter” or some topic you’ve wanted to study out.
• Write a letter to one of those people you only hear from at Christmas.
• Go through that stack of old recipes.
• Start organizing….whatever it is you need to get organized. Just choose one area lest you get overwhelmed.
• Color in a coloring book. Incredibly relaxing.
• Take an online course.
• Play uplifting music.
• Start a fitness program.
• Buy fresh or artificial colorful flowers.
• Hang a birdfeeder and watch its visitors.
• Count your blessings. Literally.
• Choose a composer or artist and look up their work as well as information about them.
• Sing

• Look for the beauty in winter. Janet shared once a poem from John Updike’s A Child’s Calendar whose lines have come back to me often this winter. This particular poem is “November,” yet everything except the “oldness of the year” applies to January:

The stripped and shapely
Maple grieves
The loss of her
Departed leaves.

The ground is hard,
As hard as stone.
The year is old,
The birds are flown.

And yet the world,
Nevertheless,
Displays a certain
Loveliness –

The beauty of the bone.

Remember the benefits of winter:

• relief from the extreme heat and humidity of summer
• rest from working outside (for most)
• fewer bugs
• fires in the fireplace
• oven meals
• winter sports
• snow
• some plants need the cold weather to develop in their life cycle
• anticipation and greater appreciation of spring

Here are some quotes about winter:

The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer.  I should say winter had given the bone and sinew to literature, summer the tissues and the blood. ~John Burroughs

Spring, summer, and fall fill us with hope; winter alone reminds us of the human condition.  ~Mignon McLaughlin

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire:  it is the time for home. ~Edith Sitwell

One kind word can warm three winter months. ~Japanese Proverb

Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter. Psalm 74:17.

Any other ideas for combatting winter “blues”? Any other benefits of winter you can think of?

This post will be linked to “Works For Me Wednesday,” where you can find a plethora of helpful hints each week at We Are THAT family on Wednesdays.