In this guest post, Gifford Volunteer Chaplain Kathy Rohloff shares her personal reflections on getting through a long Vermont winter. Whatever your approach to the season, we hope you feel supported. If you need someone to listen, and hear you with compassion, our volunteer chaplains offer a nonsectarian presence. You can reach them by calling the Rev. Tim Eberhardt at 802-728-2107.
By Kathy Rohloff
When we moved to Vermont from Texas in June of ’86, we had not yet experienced February—that undecided month expressed in, “It is winter. No, it’s spring … oops, winter again.”
Because we were planting gardens in February in Texas, February was especially hard when yet another snowstorm arrived. By our second February, I declared an emergency gathering, a February Thanksgiving to help make it through the month. We desperately needed more than Valentine chocolate to endure.
For the last 35-plus years, the tradition has continued. The country closed down in 2020 right after the celebration, we missed it in 2021, but were able to continue in 2022. What a time of rejoicing that was!
Our nuclear family as well as some extended, along with good friends, gather on a weekend evening and recreate a Thanksgiving meal that includes traditional dishes as well as whatever folks bring to add to the celebration.
And it is a celebration! Often the cars are lined bumper to bumper down the drive, vegetarian and vegan foods join the turkey and ham, a variety of desserts cover the counters, and 20-plus individuals of assorted ages gather to eat, drink, play games, share stories, laugh and blow away the February blues. And it happens before the next nor’easter passes through.
It works! Every time. A reprieve, an oasis so that we can carry on until spring truly arrives.
At this time, we are experiencing amazing weather with a hint of spring. Blue skies, warm temperatures (40-plus degrees), sunshine, melting snow and ice, and there are cars being driven with the windows down. I’m sure some folks are wearing shorts, but if the past is any indication of what is to come, this is just a reprieve.
My extended forecast a week out says 20 degrees and snow. But if that comes there will be the memory of February Thanksgiving already celebrated, or the anticipation of its arrival, and that will bring happiness.
Find a way to beat the blues of winter. It might be a night of charades, a dessert party with no mention of calories, a movie marathon that includes pajama attire.
Invite new friends to meet your old. Trust me, they will get along.
This will give you the energy to continue on to spring. And the fact of spring is that it always comes.
