This is the time of the year when perfectly normal adults turn into sad, wistful, lonely former children who can’t believe holidays aren’t magical any more, and I include myself in that category. Also, many of us have a hard time remembering that darkness is not our friend, and that feeling cold is an emotional state as well as a physical one.

Over the summer, I read a book and took some notes on how to winter. It wasn’t an outstanding book, but I did take away a few ideas I’m trying out, which I will share in the hopes that you can get an idea or two.

• Six battery-operated taper candles are flickering everywhere in my house right now. They are operated by a remote control, which I dropped in the sink at one point but which luckily kept working once I replaced the corroded battery (after buying the wrong ones at the drug store). I can’t have real candles because of my asthma, but I love fire. Even fake fire.
• Speaking of fake fire, the YouTube video of a fireplace is queued up, and whenever I’m not using my computer for anything I light the “fireplace.” In full screen mode, sitting on top of my little escritoire, I swear it makes me warmer, especially when I’m playing digital music on my wireless speaker. The hell with authenticity, is what I say.
• I made two glass terrariums to have green plants inside, though they didn’t work out because one got moldy and I broke the other one. It was just as well. I kill house plants of all descriptions. All my potted plants that fill my back yard and grace my front sidewalk are evergreens, and I can look out at them and pretend I have a garden.
• I bought a washable wool blanket for my bed, put away the sun-blocking curtains in my bedroom, and in the winter mornings, I raise my shades and open the curtains to let in whatever sunlight is out there. I wear socks and a sweatshirt over my pajamas. I already have a cat that likes to sleep with me, so I am set for that.
• I went through all my winter clothes and donated everything that I will not wear, then went thrift shopping for wool sweaters. I’m wearing the blue-and-white Fair Isle snowflake sweater right now. I found an XXL Pendleton wool pullover, and when I get chilly inside, I throw the immense thing over everything and trundle around my house, looking like an elderly bear.
• I moved all the furniture around on the first floor. Granted, I moved most of it back, but moving furniture has a way of opening up something in my brain.

A few winter traditions I put in place years ago:

• The week of Thanksgiving, I start addressing five Christmas cards a day to all kinds of people, and then mail them the first week of December. People don’t know how to react, but I don’t do it for them. I do it because otherwise I will wish I had done it later on, I don’t know why. Also, it gives me an excuse for using a custom fountain pen I shouldn’t have bought.
• I have an artificial Christmas tree, which I put up the day after Thanksgiving, and a collection of ornaments I have acquired over the years. The ornaments are downright kitschy. The whole thing looks sparkly and happy. I take the damn tree down the day after Christmas because I am tired of it, and that way I get my house back.
• This year, I reserved a nice hotel room in Manhattan for a couple of days the week before Christmas, I arranged for a cat sitter, and I’m going to a show. I will also people-watch like crazy. I will buy an expensive fountain pen and too many books. I love Manhattan, and I deserve to do what I love, and New York City does great Christmas decorations. I recommend Grand Central Station and Bryant Park.
• For Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I have no expectations whatsoever because life is complicated. My kid, son-in-law, and grandchild go to visit his parents in North Carolina every year, so alternate years I’m all by myself. One in-town year, I got COVID, and we couldn’t see each other anyway. Some years, we open presents on Christmas Eve. Other years, we don’t. Every year, I consider going to church, and then discard the notion.
• Christmas Day, no matter what, I plan to be sad, because my damn mother decided to die on Christmas. No joke. She was an Episcopal priest and she had Parkinson’s, and she stopped eating and drinking exactly at the right time, so that she could die on the day Christ probably wasn’t born. I buy orange juice and cinnamon buns in her memory, because she liked to have those on hand for family, even though I can only drink so much orange juice and even though I end up throwing out the cinnamon buns. I play Christmas carols until I am sick of them, which takes longer than you’d think.
• New Year’s Eve, I generally go to bed early. Fuck that shit. I don’t like parties, I don’t drink, and honestly I started the New Year in October when I remembered winter was coming.
• In January, I found out a long time ago, I stop being quite so gloomy, and though it is dark and cold, the days will keep getting steadily longer. I won’t have to deal with everyone’s expectations any more, or even my own expectations.

While I was writing all of this down, I made another plan: I will not try to jolly my friends out of being wistful around the holidays, or of being gloomy when the world is dark. I will listen more and speak less, and when I can’t stand listening any more, I will excuse myself and leave quietly, without making a fuss.