Winter officially arrived three days ago, but winter has come and gone multiple times for us already, starting a couple months ago. The biting cold, the crystalline blue skies, the heavy-billowed clouds, the flowers of ice on windows, the stars of frost glinting in the light of an early morning.

We’ve already had snowstorms and blizzards, days of being homebound, listening to the howl of the wind and relishing the whirling snow outside, with the comfort of warmth from our wood stove, fire roaring pleasantly, flickering through the smudged and blackened windows that give a glimpse into the heart of embers glowing inside. We’ve had wind-pummeled days, sleet-stinging days, fog-enveloped days, frost-bejeweled days, and those days of glorious warmth when winter draws back a little and the mercury reaches tentatively into the 40s, or even the 50s, coaxing out sandals and short sleeves, before plummeting again.We’ve sat around a dinner table lit by candles, eating Vienna sausages and deviled eggs, waiting for the power to come back on, but secretly (or not so secretly) enjoying being without. We’ve read by flashlight or firelight, feeling the cold creep in, but kept at bay by the stubbornness of the fireplace or stove. We’ve gazed in awe at a world transformed, and tromped gleefully through knee-high drifts between Mom and Dad’s house and our house, along an unplowed and undriveable driveway.

So winter comes. Welcome, and stay.