Surviving Cabin Fever: A Guide to Surviving the Winter Blues
It’s February. The holidays are long gone. Decorations are down. It’s dark and cold. Summer seems light years away. Like it or not, it’s time to settle in for a couple more months of winter hibernation. To help you with this, we’ve come up with a list of our tried and true tips and tricks to not just beat those seasonal blues, but to make the MOST of these long Canadian winters and even find joy in the bleak mid-winter!
1) Add HYGGE to your Home - Hygge…it’s all the rage now and the buzz word of the moment only trumped in popularity perhaps to KonMari!! Maybe you’ve heard of Hygge and wondered, “What the heck IS IT?!”
Hygge: A Danish and Norwegian word for a mood of coziness and comfortable conviviality with feelings of wellness and contentment. As much as winter can keep us inside, it’s important to enjoy the space you’re in. For us, this means adding cozy blankets to cuddle up with…Lighting candles to add ambiance…Enjoying a good book and a hot cup of tea and hanging twinkle lights to keep that warm holiday glow shining all winter long. However you add Hygge to your home, make sure it brings you feelings of wellness and contentment.
2) Visit a new coffee shop – We love, love, love visiting a coffee shop. In fact when planning a vacation or a getaway the first thing we look for - after where we are staying of course - is where we can get a good coffee in a hip, trendy, fun, environment. There is nothing more enjoyable than hitting up a local spot on a Saturday morning or a weekday evening. If you haven’t noticed, recently many new boutique coffee shops have popped up in our uptown core -Bunkhaus Hostel Taproom & Café, Catapult Coffee and Studio, Rogue Coffee and Marjorie’s Café to name a few. With offers of later hours, board games, special events and delectable desserts; a mini café hop will definitely get you through those sometimes dreary winter months.
3) Set Goals and Intentions - If you’re like us, then you LOVE goals! Goals are not only a healthy focus, but they help us power through the months with positivity, ambition and vision. This fall our goal was to have SeaGals participate in two holiday craft fairs. We worked for weeks preparing coastal Christmas decor to sell at Seaside's Craft Sale and Maple Lane Barn's Old Fashioned Country Christmas. Both were so well received and we couldn't have been happier. Maybe for you a goal is training for a spring run, taking up a new hobby, teaching yourself a new skill or even decluttering your space! Goals are like light and a light at the end of the tunnel is always worth chasing!
4) Theme Dinner Night – A great way to spice things up on a cold winter's night is to turn your dinnertime meal into a theme night – “Hey Google, play Italian music”. Try a new recipe; add some props and add some mood music and your same-old-dinner just got a pick me up! You may find that your new found enthusiasm is rubbing off on budding new chefs. Check out this Chicken Cacciatore dish. You will not be disappointed!
Chicken Cacciatore Recipe - https://www.savingdessert.com/chicken-cacciatore/
5) Monthly Rewards - Speaking of goals, for us, hitting the end of each winter month feels like a milestone worth celebrating! Plus, monthly rewards give us something to look forward to when the days and months can feel mundane and grey. Not that we wish our time away but creating things to look forward to helps us ENJOY the season. Even now we are making plans for our annual winter weekend getaway with nothing but tea, quiet, movies and beach walks on the agenda! We encourage you to make plans that bring you joy as well.
6) Hot Chocolate – The superior of all winter drinks. A winter walk or a snowed in evening would not be complete without a cup of hot chocolate to give you the warm and cozies. There are so many variations to this popular drink; milk chocolate, white chocolate, spiked with Baileys, topped with whip cream or adding a candy cane. Well, we have a treat to share with you! This is the best hot chocolate you will ever have. Use a milk frother but if you do not have one heating milk in a saucepan on the stove will work fine.
SeaGals World’s Best Hot Chocolate
- 2 Cups of 2% Milk or Homogenized (or if you prefer a dairy free alternative that will work as well)
- Your favorite chocolate bar! Yup, you read that right.
- Heat milk to a simmer in a saucepan or use your milk frother. Once heated add your favorite chocolate (whole regular sized bar) till it is melted. Once mixed pour and serve. Our favorite way to serve this drink is in a vintage tea cup. Give it a try!
7) Join a Book Club (or ANY club!) - We’ve already touched on how pleasant it is to have something to look forward to each month and for us this means BOOK CLUB! This year we’ve both had the opportunity to join a book club and it has proven to be a highlight each month! A group of us gather, enjoy drinks, good food, each other’s company and even discuss the book a bit too!:) Not only is it nice to look forward to this, but it keeps us reading and our minds engaged! As a bonus, it’s nice to read books that are chosen for you…occasionally ones you would never choose for yourself! Sometimes it results in an unexpected new favorite, or just a hilarious topic of discussion for the night! Either way, it’s a win/win and a great way to spend the indoor months.
8) Pamper Yourself - Do something that makes you feel good. Take care of you – mind, body, and soul. Our mental health is just as important as our physical health. January and February can be long and gloomy, making us feel cooped up, sluggish, an unmotivated. This is not the time to curl up with the comforter over your head and wait for it to pass. You have to get your body moving – we promise you won’t regret it. Try something new like yoga or a new fitness routine. While you are working on the inside don’t forget to work on the outside. The winter climate can be so harsh on our skin. It is time to purchase that luxurious lotion you have been admiring, and use it every day. Book that manicure/pedicure or even a facial. You deserve it. Take time for yourself to do something that feels good and it will keep you feeling rejuvenated.
9) Embrace the Climate - As long as we’re living in Canada, we may as well get used to the elements…cold, snow, ice, rain…we get it all here on the East Coast. And unless you have plans to relocate, you may as well do your best to embrace this beautiful country’s winter climate! Make the most of it. A Christmas tree farmer once said (who had been standing in the freezing cold for hours selling trees) “There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad dress!” And she is so right! Dress for the weather and get outside! A walk in the woods, sleigh rides, skating parties, winter bonfires, snowshoeing, or a visit to the ice caves are all fun ways to stay active and enjoy this province’s beautiful landscape. Plus, all this outdoor time is awesome exposure to the “sunshine vitamin”, Vitamin D; something many of us lack during the months of hibernation! Lack of Vitamin D contributes to SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and depression so just by getting some day light on that pretty face of yours, you expose yourself to Vitamin D and further increase your chance of literally beating the winter blues! So suit up, fellow Canadians, strap on a pair of ice cleats, don your warmest parka and get outside! And in case you were wondering…the sun still shines, the water still sparkles and the birds still sing in the winter time!