Last year I posted about choosing a holiday theme. Inspired by Gretchen Rubin’s Happier podcast, I somehow convince my family every year to choose a holiday theme- usually a line from a song. Previous themes have included “Joyful and Triumphant,” “Laughing All the Way,” and “In the Bleak Midwinter” (that was for 2020, bleh.) Right now I’m thinking my theme for Christmas 2022 will be “The Weather Outside is Frightful.”
SERIOUSLY. We just can’t seem to cool down here. I think every other part of the country has had some cool/cold weather, except South Florida. Usually by this time the humidity has dropped and we’ve seen overnight temperatures in the 50s and 60s, but not this year.
And we’ve notice something odd- when it does get down to, say 70, people mention that it’s “cold.” Last week on the news they were showing the forecast, and it literally showed a low of 70 with the words “cold front.” I’M SORRY, BUT THAT IS NOT COLD. It’s not even “Florida cold.” Florida cold is 50s, and even occasionally, brrr- 40s overnight. This insistence that 70 is “cold” has led us to develop a theory…
Our ongoing joke is that DeSantis has passed a law that all meteorologists must refer to 70 degrees as “cold” from now on, in an effort to convince people there is no climate change. We like this theory so much that we’ve almost started to believe it. On Thanksgiving morning, when we were heading to our race in the dark, my husband mentioned that he felt a little chilly. Then he quickly exclaimed “No, I’m not falling for his little plot! I believe in climate change! I just got a little chill.” Hee hee.
All joking aside, you may be thinking: “Jenny. What in the world did you expect when you moved to Florida? Why didn’t you just move to Alaska if you dislike the heat so much?” Good question.
I grew up near Chicago, and the winters were TERRIBLE. It wasn’t just the cold, the snow, or the wind, but it was so, so gray. By the time I was in high school I was suffering from SAD, except I didn’t know what it was back then. I’m not even sure the term “Seasonal Affective Disorder” had been invented. I just knew that I suffered from depression, mostly in the winter.
I crazily stayed in the midwest for college, but then moved to Florida, and my life changed dramatically. My cycles of depression disappeared and I began to suspect that it was weather-related- but when I had the opportunity to move to New York City for work, I decided to try it.
I LOVED living in New York- except for the weather. The first winter up there sent me into a major depression, and I had to face facts- I definitely have SAD. Still, I lived up there for several years, and also during that time worked in Germany- which, by the way, has similar weather to the US midwest- gray and depressing.
Finally, I gave up and moved back to Florida. At the time I was thrilled with this decision, because being depressed for six months out of the year is no way to live. Also, the heat didn’t bother me. I welcomed it! I could go running at noon on a summer day, and it was no problem. Looking back, that heat tolerance was my superpower- Florida was the perfect home for me.
Fast forward to my early 50s. One summer the heat REALLY started to bother me. This was around the time I went through menopause (coincidence? I think not!) It absolutely drove me berserk to have anything touching my stomach during a run on a hot day, and I was forced to run in shorts and a sports bra (also “coincidently” this was around the time where my stomach became my least favorite body part- go figure.)
I also started to have trouble sleeping in the heat. We used to set out thermostat at 75 overnight, which I can’t even imagine now. I crank the AC down to 68 and I’m still too warm. In short, the heat makes me angry. It’s become a major issue on my runs. This is why I’m waiting and waiting for our winter cool down to come… the heat and humidity are stifling to me now.
I fantasize about moving out of Florida- but it’s just not feasible right now with my husband’s job and my daughter’s school. And, I know I still have SAD. That will never go away, and I’m pretty sure mine is too severe to be cured by a SAD lamp. Maybe eventually I could move to…. northern Florida? Georgia?
In the meantime, I’m sticking to my holiday theme of “The Weather Outside is Frightful.” But if we get our cool down, I’ll happily change it to “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”
It’s the penultimate day of NaBLoPoMo2022! How exciting. Does anyone want to join me in choosing a holiday theme?
36 Responses
Oh, that’s horrible!
I remember being in Naples, Florida – I think it was 2017 or 2018 – when it was really cold.
It actually snowed up in north Florida.
I hope you will get your cool down soon, Jenny. Or else move to Cape Town! There’s always a cool breeze because of the icy cold Atlantic.
I’m sure the local orchestra needs a trumpeter. Or two.
Yes, it does snow sometimes up in northern Florida! The last time it snowed in our area was in the 1970s- and it won’t happen again.
I can’t believe how warm it’s been in Florida!! And oh to even think 70 was cold. But I know “cold” is very much a relative term. My idea of cold shifts drastically through the year. 50 feels cold in sept/oct then warm until like March or April. We had an awful cold stretch in Nov but then it was very mild the last couple of weeks. Today we might get 5-8″ of snow and then a true cold front – highs in the 20s.
I’ve lived in the midwest all of my life except 1 year in Charlotte. I don’t love the weather but it’s fine overall I guess? Proximity to family keeps us here, especially being close to my MIL because we are all she has – Phil is her only living son, her only sister died from suicide in the 80s. And she really leans on Phil for lots since she is still in her big suburban home… I hate winters here but I LOVE our summer and fall, and I love the city of Minneapolis. It’s really progressive and has a lot of character. And our area of the city is just wonderful – there are so many walking/biking paths. It would be hard to find something comparable. But I have told Phil that we HAVE to get out of here during our retirement. We can spend summers here but I am NOT staying here in the winter when our kids have graduated from HS. I am a planner so love to think about where we might go but he doesn’t like to dream/plan like I do!
I don’t have a theme for the Christmas season. It’s going to be a really busy month, especially with a trip to Mexico in the middle, plus a surgery the week of Christmas. Several people have told us we are crazy to take a vacation in December. But I don’t feel all that stressed. We are major under buyers when it comes to gifts so most of my shopping is done and I don’t have much to wrap. So I feel pretty cool and calm about it. I do wish I wasn’t traveling to Chicago for work next week but couldn’t avoid the trip!
I don’t think I could take the weather in Minneapolis, but other than that it does sound like an amazing place to live. Living near your MIL is important- there will come a time when she won’t be here, and you and Phil will be very happy you had this time with her. And, when you retire you can winter in Florida!
I am not a fan of the cold, but I’m also not a fan of the heat. I know – I’M IMPOSSIBLE TO PLEASE. My husband jokes I’m either “freezing hot or boiling cold” and that I have a “0.5 degree comfort zone” – he’s mostly true. I’m either cold or hot most of the time.
I don’t think I have any serious SAD impacts living where I do, but I definitely can feel depressed by the weather from January – late March. My dream in retirement is to go somewhere warm from December 26th to May 1st. A girl’s gotta dream…
I remember you doing the theme last year and loving the idea. I can’t for the life of me remember what I chose last time? I have two thoughts and will ponder before making my final selection:
– I really love a song called O Come, All You Unfaithful. I know it sounds like a rather odd title, but it’s a lovely reflection on how (according to my spiritual beliefs) we can come as we are to God. So…while it’s not EXACTLY the lyric, I’m going with Come As You Are.
Come to my home if I haven’t been able to vacuum the floors first (though now that I have a robovac, where is my excuse). Come to supper without bringing anything. Come as you are.
The other one I immediately thought of (and which is on the back of our family photocards this year) is from a O Holy Night – A thrill of hope. There is so much pain in the world, and it feels like Christmas brings social and economic disparity into sharp relief. I want to focus on hope; how can I bring hope to other’s – not just theoretically, but tangibly? And then, I want to celebrate all the good in my life! It’s so easy to feel grumpy in the middle of such a busy season but I have SO much to be thankful for and so much hope in my life.
Thanks for prompting this exercise again, Jenny! I’ll ponder and see if I can come to a final decision and/or if some other song lyric shows up as a frontrunner!
Yes, I love that lyric from O Holy Night- a thrill of hope. I think if you go to the link in this post and look at the comments, you’ll see what your theme from last year was!
I feel like I’ve become very high maintenance, temperature-wise. I should probably just live in a biodome where the temperature is controlled year-round, never too hot or too cold. Is that too much to ask?
When you build/buy/find a biodome, please let me know and I’ll join you! It ISN’T TOO MUCH TO ASK. I just want to be comfortable!!!
Ha ha… okay.
Yes – of course! I could just follow your link. Duh!
A few fun things:
1) I picked Let it snow (Let it go) last year because I was feeling quite grumpy about the weather and needed to remind myself to just LET IT SNOW.
2) We used the same photo from Unsplash. The one you had at the top of your post is the same one I used yesterday!
3) Within your “theme” post last year you link to a post about your least favourite Christmas songs. It was a complete coincidence I posted about this yesterday and TWO of your least-liked songs are also my two least favourites! We’re Christmas music twins, Jenny!!!
Now let’s just meet in the middle on the weather (you send some heat, I’ll bring the cold) and life will be practically perfect!
Ha ha… I thought that photo looked familiar! And yes… we agree on two of my least favorite Christmas songs.
This was interesting to read about how you react to the weather and have come to dislike the heat, even as someone suffering from SAD. But age can change people a lot! My father-in-law never liked sun holidays but he changed 20 or so years ago and now they have a house in Spain.
70s is around 20s Celsius, that’s something I would enjoy very much at this time of the year, but only if it’s somewhere where it’s normal.
I’m Swedish and had the horrible winters that you had in Chicago (although I actually think Chicago is worse!). We lived in Ireland a year and then moved back, but after a few years back I started suffering from SAD. I couldn’t handle the long rough winter and couldn’t handle the thought of it either, so I couldn’t even enjoy the autumn anymore. Then we moved back to Ireland. The winters aren’t fun here but MUCH better than Sweden. Much shorter and much milder.
As for choosing a holiday theme… after today’s gym session I think it’d have to be “joyful and triumphant”!! 🙂
Yes, that’s another thing- it wasn’t just the winter, but I would start to dread it in the fall- so it really was over half the year that I was either depressed, or dreading the upcoming depression.
Yes, I would imagine winters in Ireland are much more mild than Sweden! And… I’m glad you had such a good gym session!
That’s really warm! On the flip side, it is very very cold here right now. Like, minus 19 cold, plus windchill, which makes it minus 27. So, pretty cold! But the thing about Calgary is that 75% of the time when it’s cold like this, it’s also sunny and with blue skies. It’s a small thing but it does help.
I know a lot of people have SAD lamps and I think it helps. Also, vitamin D. I double up my vitamin D intake in the winter, which means I’m consuming probably about 3000 IU a day. I think it helps but I also haven’t suffered depression so my baseline might be different.
I don’t really have a “theme” for my holidays, but typically I think Merry and Bright, also Let Your Heart Be Light.
Yes, a lot of sun would make a big difference. It’s very, very gray in the area where I grew up, UGH!
I’m sorry about your weather but it seems wonderful to me… except around the holidays, it seems like there should be snow… not on my running paths… just the grass LOL
I can’t imagine how a lamp could help… I feel much better just getting outside everyday even if there’s only a hint of sun.
Darlene, after I read your most recent race recap I thought “Wait! Maybe the heat isn’t so bad after all.” I need to spend about a week in your area- then maybe I’ll appreciate Florida again.
I agree with Nicole that it’s not so much the cold that gets me down as the grey skies. I grew up in western Michigan where it is miserably grey because of lake effects all the time. The first winter I moved to Minneapolis, I was SHOCKED at how little the temperature difference was, but how much sunnier and blue the skies were. I do have SAD and there are a combination of lifestyle changes that can be made to combat it: SAD lamp (which I do every morning), Vitamin D supplements, going outside every day even in inclement weather (I have a dog, so this is not a challenge for me), exercise regularly, have houseplants, and try to get away to somewhere warm for at least a couple days in the winter. Also, don’t live near the Great Lakes. (I kid. Sort of.) This is mostly a PSA out there to people that SAD is not an insurmountable challenge, although it does require a little bit of work to prevent spirals.
Yes, even here in Florida my vitamin D is low unless I supplement all the time. I never did try the SAD lamp- I’m sure it would help somewhat. But I think if I lived up north I would have to expend so much energy combatting SAD, it wouldn’t be worth it. Might as well live down here and deal with the heat.
Sometimes I think I can never move again anywhere else. It never gets very hot in coastal Bay Area (I say coastal because if you go over the hill, it’s very different) but it also never gets very cold and most days are sunny and you can almost always be outside. That’s what we pay for. I can’t imagine living in a place with excessive heat. Las Vegas was nice when we were there just now but summers there are brutal. Germany is grey and dark in winter, not sure how I would manage now.
Yes, you probably live in the ideal climate!!! As you said… that’s why people pay the big bucks.
Right now I just want to push a fast forward button to get us to the winter solstice so that we can start having more daylight. It hasn’t been *that* cold yet but gah it’s pretty dreary up north. I’ve known a couple of people who moved to FL or CA and they’ve told me how much of a difference it makes. I would move to FL in a heartbeat even with DeSantis! The only thing keeping me here is my family. We’ve told the boys that one of them needs to live by the ocean and the other in the mountains and we’ll split our time between them.
Florida definitely has a lot of good features. Hopefully in a few weeks we’ll have more seasonal weather and I’ll be singing a different tune. I definitely couldn’t take the dreariness up north.
Oh my goodness, I love your holiday theme (and all the ones you shared). That is TOO hot. I live in The Winter Grey and it is awful and soul crushing, but I don’t think I could do the heat. That is soul crushing in its own way. You have my deepest sympathies.
I did get a good giggle out of your DeSantis theory, though! Hilarious.
Thank you Suzanne! The heat is bad, but for me the gray winter is more soul crushing. So… I just have to make the best of it, for now.
Move to California or the southwest! We have the heat, but not the humidity. Of course, it’s insanely expensive, so there’s that. I am not a runner, so had no idea that having something on your stomach could be horrible. I am shallow and always assumed that people in great shape (like you) were just super confident and OK with your stomach (as I once was), so showed them off. As I would if I were a runner and in great shape (like you). Anyway, I am nearing my late 50s, and I FEEL YOU on how heat used to be super great and now SUCKS. I wish you peace and some kind of solution. I am cheap when it comes to paying for A/C, so that is hard. Thankfully for us, it has been cool here (35 when I woke up this morning), so not an issue.
Now if I could just convince my family to not walk around in shorts, t-shirts, and barefoot, and complain about the cold…turning on the heater. PUT ON SOME CLOTHES.
Oh, that last part was funny… because on the nights where we really do cool down (again, not this year, yet) my kids walk around in shorts, and then ask me to “warm up the air”, ha ha- turn on the heat (it’s so rare, they don’t even know what it’s called.) Yes- put on some warmer clothes! I don’t want to turn the heat on when it’s 59 degrees outside.
And yes- there are definitely parts of the country where I’m pretty sure I could live happily. I’ll keep it in mind in case I win the lottersy!
We are going into summer here, but wondering the opposite – when will it get hot? although this week is getting better, with Sunday forecast to be 31C. We usually don’t have a lot of humidity, but I expect we’ll get more humidity this year with the La Nina weather system for the next few months. I think that makes the heat worse. we are lucky also because we don’t get bad winters; a cold winter’s day would be about 10C. I’m sure you don’t want to move back somewhere with dreary winters, the SAD sounds awful.
Oh, that’s funny- you’re wishing it were hotter. I do remember that from the days I lived near Chicago- we would always be wanting summer to come quicker.
Sorry to hear about your SAD. But good that you have found your home. But I understand that the heat can be a major issue if there is never any relieve. I. find it very alarming that it has changed 20°. That is a lot. Everyone saying climate change is a hoax surely life in a different universe. It is so. imminent in so many many things.
Yes, it clearly seems warmer this year. But we’ll see… I’m hoping a cooldown will still come our way.
I’m reading this as it is 25 degrees and windy, thinking, I’ll trade you! There has to be a happy medium and I know that I wouldn’t love to live in Florida. Now California–that’s my kind of weather. I hope you get some respite from the heat soon!
Yes… I think California is the place to live nowadays!
70’s is definitely not a “cold front” LOL but I guess it’s always “compared to what you know”?
My first winter in California, I saw people in shorts and flips flops, even though I was used to freezing temperatures and it was not freezing at the time… but cold enough to put on some pants and close-toed shoes.
I appreciate the 40s/50s in the winter time for sure. I like having seasons…. but that’s hard when you’re dealing with SAD.
It has been so hot for December! But I think we’re finally going to get some cooler weather here for Christmas, and it couldn’t have come at a more perfect time!
Yes, I’m excited- there’s a cold front predicted for Christmas!!! How fun.