Snow has always been one of my favorite things about winter, taking second place only to Christmas and Mexican hot chocolate. Though the landscape is a sad color of brown this year, winter goes on—and people keep asking me what I do all day when it’s cold outside. The answer is simple.
I do school. Being a high school sophomore comes with a pretty heavy workload, especially since my family is cutting this semester short to be able to go on vacation in the spring. I’m doubling up on my lessons to get done before we leave in April, so I don’t have as much free time as people think I do.
When I do have spare time, I spend it in a variety of ways. My family and I like to be outside, no matter the temperature! (Although one downside of homeschooling is that we don’t get snow days off.) Besides chores, my siblings and I love to play in the snow, reenact medieval battle scenes in the yard, and take walks. Two years ago, when it was really cold, I made a square igloo out of ice blocks on our property, complete with a hanging door and a working fireplace. My mom called it a research project and counted it towards school even though she hadn’t organized it, because I spent so much time learning about the traditional construction method beforehand. It took me a week to build, but it lasted until the spring thaw!
When I am really stuck in the house due to weather or sickness, I do a lot of creative activities. Writing, reading, baking, and drinking hot tea are all in my daily schedule. My brothers will usually turn on an audiobook or music while we are doing schoolwork. Around Christmas our family likes to play board games and put together puzzles. Occasionally, my siblings and I will put on a play for our parents. We hang bedsheets across our living room lights and draw playbills advertising our production. Though the subject varies, it’s usually an adapted fairy tale, and I am writer/director/villain, my sister stars as the heroine, and my brothers play whatever parts they can be coerced into. Everybody enjoys getting dressed up to go onto the “stage”!
We are a low-tech family, but I still spend more time on screens in the winter than any other time of the year. My mom tries to keep it educational; my siblings and I watch nature documentaries, history videos, or the movie version of a book we’ve just read. This semester I also started my first online course, which is Personal Finance by Dave Ramsey. I am enjoying it a lot! The subject matter is in a series of videos, and the tests and grading are done on our computer, which makes it easier for my mom. The only con is that it’s not as flexible as a regular textbook. I can’t do it in the car on the way to art lessons, for example.
I love the snow. But honestly, its absence doesn’t change much for me.
Ada Smith is homeschooled on a small farm outside Boulder. She hopes to study creative writing in college.
