Margo Oxendine

My little gas fireplace must be running when I am in my study reading or watching TV. I love a gas fireplace: No wood to chop or buy, no kindling to scrounge, no reason to break a fingernail, get sooty, or tear a gash in my skin.

It’s February, and that makes me happy. I know most of you dread February. There will be snow, and maybe lots of it. This makes me happy.

I’ll bet there are fellows out there who dread February because of one particular thing: Valentine’s Day. While most women look forward to it with a rosy, romantic feeling, I think the fellows fret and worry. Here are some tips: First, this is no time for a Crock-Pot gift, unless your loved one longs for it. I remember well my Crock-Pot holiday. Let’s just say it was impossible to recapture the romance. Do not think you can slide by with flowers, candy or perfume. Buy all three. And if you’re considering skulking about in a fancy lingerie store, by all means do. Just realize we know that a gift of lingerie is more for you than for us.

By no means should couples succumb to whimsy or impulse and get married on Valentine’s Day. I know four couples who did; none are still married.

I do not have a Valentine — nor do I desire one — but by golly, I’ve got a birthday in February. Come Feb. 12, I know I will have a fun and tasty and gift-laden time. What’s not to love about that?

My theory is that I love winter so much because I was born in the dead of winter. I know I’m not the only one there who adores snow — especially watching it fall. I even enjoy shoveling it, to some degree. I must always shovel a path for little Brownie to get outside without being buried in a drift. I love the look on her face when I let her out and it has snowed during the night. She stops in her tracks and looks back at me as if to say, “What?! This stuff again?”

Back to my winter baby theory, I have kept mental notes, and everyone I know who loves winter was born during that season. You won’t find many July babies who embrace snow and cold weather.

Here is something most of you can like about February: There are several holidays that result in an extra day or two off for many of you. And the powers that be have seen to it that those holidays fall on a weekend. So: Three- or four-day weekends. What’s not to love, especially if you’re getting paid to lounge around and grouse about the snow!

Another thing I love about February, and winter in general, is that I must wear comfy, cozy clothes. Layers of them. And socks. My little gas fireplace must be running when I am in my study reading or watching TV. I love a gas fireplace: No wood to chop or buy, no kindling to scrounge, no reason to break a fingernail, get sooty, or tear a gash in my skin.

I chuckle when I recall a woman who had moved to Monterey to run The Recorder newspaper. Rental houses are difficult to come by in the hinterlands, but she found one. Turns out, it had no heat source other than a huge wood stove in the kitchen. That necessitated a whole new learning experience, which included buying and storing massive cords of firewood, stoking it into the unattractive stove, and ruining her once perfectly manicured nails. She

had bruises and scrapes and burns and a really bad attitude that winter. She had fled town by mid-October. I’m guessing that no matter how much one might stoke a woodstove for the night, it is absolutely frigid when one awakens in an upstairs bedroom at zero dark thirty. I can’t imagine trying to gather wood and load up a stove and get it lit before having coffee. Or even after coffee.

In winter, there is much to be said in favor of lap robes. I have one at every chair. I am wrapped in one right now. I’m also wearing flannel pants, heavy socks, a thermal undershirt, and a heavyweight shirt lined with fleece. Sometimes, even my hair gets cold, so I put on my pink hat with the earflaps. Oh, such an attractive picture.

I sincerely hope I haven’t depressed you with all this talk about winter. I know, there’s this thing called “Seasonal Affective Disorder,” where some folks get sad during winter. That only affects me in summer.