When summer was hot and the temperatures were in the nineties, I remember praying for the cold and snow. I had enough of summer, and I was ready for winter. The air conditioning unit couldn’t keep up with the heat and humidity and it was miserable in our house. Cold and snow sounded like a welcome reprieve. It is the middle of November, and it has been as cold as mid-January for most of it. We had almost four feet of snow on the ground, from the five feet of snow we had two days earlier. I was looking outside and thinking about how beautiful the winter wonderland was, and then I remembered it wasn’t winter yet. We still had at least four more months of winter weather to get through. I wondered if someone wasn’t listening when I prayed for this weather, and took me literal. My furnace had been cleaned and serviced, but I wasn’t ready for winter. I would have loved this weather for Christmas. We would have pulled out our big sled and hitched the horse to it. The kids, my husband and I would wrap up in blankets and turn on the space heaters to keep our feet warm. All snuggled in the sled, we would ride across the fields to visit my mom and grandparents. This was one of the greatest joys of living in the country. The space heaters kept us fairly warm, and we all sang on the way. I was hoping for that at Christmas, but not before Thanksgiving. I turned up the thermostat and sighed. Winter was definitely early this year, and it was because of me.