By Holly Kozelsky
Packing for our holiday trip to Grandma’s and Grandpa’s, we packed lightweight summery clothes.
No, we were not going to see them in Florida. They go there after the new year. They live in Snow Country, but inside their house, when you’re huffing and puffing and dripping in sweat, you’d never know it.
Brrrrr! It’s cold in winter in Henry County, especially in our drafty, old house. The first year we planned on December in Snow Country I imagined paralyzing cold and dressed and packed accordingly, with the thickest, warmest long johns underneath the heaviest pants and wool sweaters.
Ooooh, what a mistake, first all scrunched up and stifling hot on the airplanes, and next with the shock of inside the house.
It was warm. It was hot. We were not decades but eons away from the days when I’d be shivering down to my teeth, covered in goosebumps, begging for the heat to be turned up and told a resounding “no.”
When you’re sitting around the living room you feel a bit too warm. When action starts, such as opening Christmas presents, all that moving around works you up a sweat.
The beds are covered in thick blankets, quilts and comforters. When you first get into bed it’s so hot that they all need to be rolled to the side. Perhaps you’ll use a sheet, or perhaps even that is too much.
If you put on makeup right after taking a shower, the hot steam causes your mascara to run down your face as you are fluffing on your blush.
By now I know to pack light for Grandma’s and Grandpa’s. The only cold part is between vehicle and house or building. The stuffy indoor heat of winter is the North’s version of the South’s summers with air conditioning blasting so cold that you have to bring a sweater everywhere you go despite it being 95 degrees outside.
