The last leaves are falling, the sky is moody, the days are get­ting shorter and it’s a bit colder every­day. Almost win­ter, I guess.

To non-initiated peo­ple, it’s hard to explain what is going inside a Canadian’s head right before win­ter. It’s a mix of fear and pride, a mix of appre­hen­sion and excitement.

Win­ter can be fun, at first. The first snow fall is usu­ally beau­ti­ful: a pure white blan­ket cov­er­ing the city, cov­er­ing the dirt­i­ness (and the pot­holes). The fol­low­ing storm is stronger and next thing you know, you are shov­el­ing two feet deep of snow to get out of the house. Daily tasks can be a pain: get­ting up in the cold, get­ting dressed, get­ting around — all that takes longer.

But the slow descent into win­ter is also some­what sooth­ing. We are like ani­mals: we eat more, we stay home and we (try to) sleep longer. After all the excite­ment of the sum­mer and the long days, it’s some­what com­fort­ing. So let’s all grab a cup of hot choco­late and snug­gle in lay­ers of thick sweaters.

Related arti­cles:

1. Ottawa By Night
2. Snow, Snow, Snow… And More Snow
3. Not Win­ter Already…
4. Win­ter Melt­ing Away
5. Snow & Slush