What makes you happy? #27

I really shouldn't like the fall.

Autumn (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I hate the winter.  It's cold and wet and dark, you destroy your clothes in the slush or hurt yourself on the ice, streets need to be plowed (and aren't), walks need to be shoveled (and aren't), and cars need to be dug out (and, in extreme cases, aren't -- even if they were double-parked). Meanwhile, everyone overcompensates with the heat, so inside it's simultaneously sweaty and dehydrating.

I like Christmas.  I like knitting scarves.  The rest of it? No thanks.

But I love the fall. The colors and smells, the foods and activities...

Give me orange and red trees, acorns underfoot. Hay and corn and pumpkins and apples. Cider donuts, pumpkin-spiced everything. Maize mazes. Fairs, with oysters or sausage or seasonal beer or funnel cake and popcorn.  Petting zoos, with goats and cows and turtles and alpacas. Artisans pushing their wares, jellies and jewelry and everything in between.

Jeans and boots and a t shirt and a cardigan, with a warm jacket after dark. Maybe a scarf.

It's what I think early-winter holidays are supposed to be: celebrations of light and abundance, before everything gets dark and miserable. But between now and Christmas, you watch: we'll already have had a storm, and cold-and-flu season will be in effect, and the joy of finding the perfect gift will just mask the fact that, sorry: it'll already be dark and miserable.

But now? Today? I'll embrace the last of the sun, and the last of the leaves, and the last of the fruits, and the last of the festivals.

What's your favorite season?

Related articles

• Revealed! Book Club Choices for October. Happy Reading.
• Friday Review #31