“I just love winter,” said the man from Northern California.

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“It’s so fun to get all bundled up and brave the outdoors,” said the man whose winter attire was a Patagonia Nano-Puff jacket and sometimes gloves.

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“I like when we can stay in and life slows down a little bit,” said the man who had not experienced 48 consecutive hours in his life in which lawn bowling was not a realistic option.

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“And if we’re lucky, maybe we get a bit of the fluffy white stuff,” said the man who had never owned a snow shovel and had never witnessed snow’s transition to a dense grey mass of ice and salt.

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“Plus, I like a little nip in the air,” said the man who had never missed the short window between excruciating cold and total numbness, only to discover the problem a half-hour later upon viewing his mottled white skin in a mirror.

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“Although I will admit, the short days get to me, and it’s a bummer driving to work in the dark,” said the man whose daily routine did not include a bone-chilling seven-second walk to his car each morning to crank the heat to full blast, while grabbing the ice scraper out of the back seat to scrape just enough ice to see the road from the driver’s side, and then going back inside his house to let the car heat-up as long as possible before he runs out of time to make his commute, to then get back in the car, which is still so frigid that he can’t grip the steering wheel without gloves, until a few minutes later when the car becomes too hot and he has to take off his jacket while driving in four lanes of traffic.

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“Sure, we don’t get the harshest winters here, but no one’s forcing people to live in New York or Minnesota or something,” said the man, factually.