how to make a winter happiness plan - by Amelia Greenhall

I made my first Winter Happiness Plan because of a conversation with my friend Michael almost fifteen years ago. We’d moved to Seattle and Portland, and by early November we were already shocked by the amount of darkness and rain of the Pacific Northwest. How will we make it through the winter? We decided to make winter happiness plans: we’d plan to do things that would make us happy in winter, and looking forward to them and doing them would make the winter easier. We pulled out sheets of paper and made our lists. I’ve been making one every year since; even the years Adam and I lived in San Francisco, where there really is no winter exactly. It’s one of my favorite fall/winter rituals. If you want to make one too, the winter solstice (today, if you’re in the northern hemisphere) is a good day for it, or do it in the fall at your first inkling of the feeling of the seasons changing. Here’s how: Label the top of a piece of paper / notes document WINTER HAPPINESS PLAN. Make a list of thi

I made my first Winter Happiness Plan because of a conversation with my friend Michael almost fifteen years ago. We’d moved to Seattle and Portland, and by early November we were already shocked by the amount of darkness and rain of the Pacific Northwest. How will we make it through the winter? We decided to make winter happiness plans: we’d plan to do things that would make us happy in winter, and looking forward to them and doing them would make the winter easier. We pulled out sheets of paper and made our lists. I’ve been making one every year since; even the years Adam and I lived in San F