Favorite Things to Do in the Winter

Today's Long & Short Reviews blog prompt invites book reviewers to share our favo(u)rite things to do in the winter. (Part of the fun is that participants live in places that get different kinds of winter weather...)

Right. Virginia has winter, well, right about now. Usually it's what most of the world would call a mild winter. We think any temperature below the freezing point of water is COLD and any snow on the ground is a WEATHER EMERGENCY. It does not take a great number of Southerners trying to drive on snow to make an emergency. It's not hard to enjoy our winter weather, though, if you maintain perspective. 

Here is a Top Ten List of things to do in winter, where I live:

1. Go to a place that does not have winter. This one never was my actual favorite because I'm sensitive to all the chemicals they spray into the air in Florida. However, it's definitely a popular thing to do in winter in Virginia and definitely identifies those who do it as privileged, and when I was a kid we had that privilege because we had relatives in Florida. So. Florida, Texas, California, Arizona, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, wherever you have relatives, here you come. When writing cheerful postcards on the patio, practice editing skills. Your friends back in Virginia do not want to hear about the palmetto roaches or your chemical sensitivities. Write about shells, winter-blooming flowers, tropical butterflies, migrating birds, and whatever other special attractions the place you visit may have. Perpetuate the myth that you are having fun. Who knows, you might manage to feel that this is true.

2. Alternatively, go to a place that has a "real" winter. This is not popular, but it may impress people. Maine, Vermont, Canada, Pennsylvania, or Michigan might be fun in summer. If you have actual business to take care of in winter, you're tough. I have an eighty-something relative who is taking care of business in Pennsylvania this winter. He is Something Else! I last went north for the winter during the Gulf War. Pittsburgh looks really pretty under a foot or two of snow. People in Pittsburgh don't wail about snow the way we do. They are downright inspiring.

3. Alternatively, go to Gatlinburg. Gatlinburg, Tennessee, is where Southerners go to practice winter sports. The weather does not naturally supply a great deal of snow, but the tourists go there to ski, so they make something for skiing on. They have places for skating, too. Gatlinburg also offers regular hiking, camping, fishing, golf and "miniature golf," and incredibly inane tourist amusements. I think the last time I was there someone was actually charging tourists money for a look at a "Paradise on Earth" (pair o' dice on earth). Gatlinburg is located in between Dollywood and Cherokee Town. Dollywood is best enjoyed with children. Cherokee Town offers entertainment for tourists with or without children. Both are usually visited in summer, but some attractions are open in winter.

4. Or just drive or walk around admiring the holiday light show. At the Bristol Motor Speedway, driving around to see the lights is a traditional charity fundraiser some people feel obligated to do every year. In many residential neighborhoods, too, people like to decorate their houses and trees in enough colored lights to become a cheap tourist attraction. Even little Gate City has its fairy light fanciers and is good for an evening's entertainment for light show fans. Kingsport and Bristol try to offer a day's light watching apiece. Asheville and Knoxville traditionally have their lights too, and for some people nothing will do but to spend a day in Helen, Georgia. For those who don't know, Helen is a consciously touristy German-American town and one of the German traditions they perpetuate is lots of decoration and celebration of the Christmas season.

5. Enjoy the midwinter thaw. Unfortunately for those who really do "dream of a white Christmas," the winter solstice is usually associated with a week or so of mild weather, often with afternoon highs in the fifties or even sixties Fahrenheit. You might as well enjoy it. Walk around without a heavy coat. 

6. Enjoy the snow, in years when we get some. Virginia is not covered in snow every year. When we are, we might as well enjoy that, too. Make snow sculptures. Enjoy the children's extra time off school. Light a fire. Pop corn. Tell stories. 

7. Enjoy your extended family. The winter holidays aren't the real anniversary of the birth of Christ; they are the time when families traditionally gather together. Shop. Cook. Reminisce. Putter around in the garage or the sewing room together. Make a family quilt. 

8. Repair the damage. Especially if there's been snow, a lot of repair work might as well be done now as later. 

9. Explore a cave. The Bristol Caverns are a nice, safe, tourist-friendly introduction to the cave country for which the Cherokee Nation was named. (The names used in English for many indigenous groups came from other ethnic groups' words for "enemies," but Chillukki was an allied group's word for "people from cave country.") Caving is fun in winter because it's almost totally independent of weather. Caves stay cool but never really cold all year. There are some other caves, open to the public but a little more of a challenge, that appeal to people to whom the Bristol Caverns  have become familiar. 

10. Listen to music. When I was growing up, music was one of our principal products. Everyone sang or played, and big-name musicians hung out at venues like the Carter Fold regularly. Two thirds of the kids in the high school chorus, which wasn't even considered to be for serious musicians, have been paid to perform or record music. Now a lot of our musicians have retired or died, and people wonder what will become of our musical traditions. Keep them alive. Play the old records, sing along, and encourage people who are recording new ones.