The cosiest of seasons, apparently. Winter is no sooner started until the Christmas and New Year festivities are already ticked off the list, essentially leaving January and February to make up most of the season.
Christmas is a great time for readers in general. There’s a chance to be gifted books and give some to others, capitalise on holiday deals and offers, and generally just reward yourself with some relaxation for making it to the end of another year. And, of course, we’re now in 2025, so good job on getting through 2024!
However, Christmas and winter are also pretty distracting for readers, too. You have the ordeal of family and socialising, making sure all goes well with the presents, food, and festivities. For younger people, they likely have mock exams at school, and university students likely just got through their slog of end-of-semester deadlines. Naturally, academia is waiting to return in January, so there isn’t as much breathing space as we like to imagine.
Those who work will no doubt be hit even harder, especially those in retail, hospitality, and healthcare careers. It can all get very stressful and tiring, eating into your reading time or exhausting you to the point of not even wanting to pick up a book. All of that is amplified if you happen to suffer from S.A.D. and let the lack of sunlight get to you.
However, despite the strange amounts of dread and stress the winter brings us, in those moments where we can breathe, everything truly is at peace; the winter weather comes in to hush everything under a layer of snow, or drown out the world with the rattle of hail. It really is wonderful.
On lazy winter days, there’s nothing more to do other than tidy the house, make something warm to drink, cosy up somewhere comfortable, and read page after page. It is these moments, alongside walks in the breezy, snow-covered countryside, that make winter my absolute favourite season.
Everything about winter is propagandised to be perfect. It’s a very capitalist influence, no doubt, but I quite like to buy into it. If any part of my year is to be perfect, then I want those three or so months of winter to be. And I get closer to that goal of winter perfection when I have a book in hand, tea nearby, and serene snowscapes just outside my window.
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