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Confessions Of An East Coast Native Missing Winter

Emma Shepardson |
October 18, 2014 | 10:02 a.m. PDT

Staff Reporter

Winter in New York (Emma Shepardson/Neon Tommy)
Winter in New York (Emma Shepardson/Neon Tommy)
Growing up in New York, fall and winter were both so special to me. I loved to watch the leaves change as I drove down the highway to get to school, going pumpkin and apple picking, and seeing the tree in Rockefeller Plaza. Most of all, I loved waking up in the morning, looking out the window and seeing a snowy, winter wonderland. There are few things that can beat that. 

Now that I go to school in LA, fall and winter are a completely different experience. I admit I do get jealous when I see Snapchats from my friends in their cute, super comfy sweaters and vests. But then I realize I have sunshine and palm trees all around. However, there are so many unique parts of fall and winter that just do not happen in SoCal. 

For starters: real, truly cold, sweater weather. I have dozens of sweaters that I used to wear throughout fall and winter. Now, if I am lucky, I hardly have a few weeks to wear any sweater or sweatshirt variation. There is a certain lazy mood attached to sweaters that we are simply not afforded in this sunshine state. There is nothing uptight or demanding about a sweater; they keep you warm, and embrace comfortability to the highest level. 

Another cold weather favorite is pumpkin and apple picking. It’s a family outing, accompanied by a hayride, blankets, hot cider, and yummy donuts. By the end, pumpkin patch goers are left with some pumpkins to carve and delicious apples to enjoy. In my family, there is always a fight among the siblings, but let’s be real, when is there not on a day-long family adventure? Soon enough, it’s all fun and games again. 

Next: the snow. There is no feeling as magical as waking up on a crisp winter morning to see a blanket of snow covering the houses and streets outside the window. There is nothing green or brown in sight, just a beautiful cloud of white. The night before the snow is arguably even better than the snow itself (pre-snow day excitement, am I right?).

Even as an 18-year-old senior in high school, the hype about a potential snow day is just as exciting as it was when I was 5-years-old. For all the warm weather natives, there are specific rituals that must be practiced the night before a possible snow day. These include but are not limited to: turning your pajamas inside out, flushing ice cubes down the toilet, and putting a spoon underneath your pillow. Maybe these bizarre activities are exclusive to New York, or the East Coast, but I promise, they do work. 

Once the phone rings early in the morning with the beloved ‘snow day call’, the activities begin. After getting in contact with all of your friends (within walking distance because the streets are not safe to drive on) you all convene in snow gear, and probably with sleds in hand. You sled until your face becomes so red you can barely speak and there is enough snow in your clothes to make tomorrow another snow day. You all run to the closest friends house and enjoy hot chocolate with marshmallows by the fire while their mom dries all of your clothes so you don’t go home soaking wet. These days don’t come very often, but when they do, they are some of the happiest days of the year, despite the frigid temperatures.   

There are many reasons I came to school in LA, one of them being the weather. There are so many days when the temperature on the East Coast, or any state where it gets really, really cold, makes you wish you lived in paradise instead. In fact, it might have been hundreds of those days that made me want to move to LA. Nonetheless, there is still something unique about those days. It is so cold, so rainy, so snowy, that you debate in your driveway whether it’s worth even getting out of your car to walk into the house. Sometimes, it’s just better to sit in the driveway for a while with the heat blasting. There are days when it is legitimately painful to be outside for more than a minute. But that is something that people who grow up LA never get to experience. 

Looking out my window and seeing sunshine and palm trees is the greatest feeling; I don’t know if I would change it for anything. But when I walk around LA in the fall and winter and realize that so many of these people never got to experience the perks of fall and winter - the real seasonal changes - I feel a bit nostalgic.

A lot of days, when it gets chilly enough for me to wear jeans and a long sleeve shirt, I feel like I should be cuddling in bed with hot chocolate and Netflix because that is about as cold as it will get here. But then I realize that maybe it’s okay to have a place that’s different from home. The weather is different, and so are the seasonal traditions. It makes me feel much more appreciative to go home for Thanksgiving and the holidays. I get to experience the seasons the way I did as I was growing up, and then, when I have had enough of the cold weather (which is a feeling that usually is already upon me by the time I've walked from the JFK airport terminal to my mom's car) I know I can come back to “winter” in LA - a nice, warm, comforting treat. 

Reach Staff Reporter Emma Shepardson here or follow her on Twitter here



 

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