It’s the holiday season and for many of you, it’s time to relax, unwind, and spend time indoors by the fire reading catalogs and how-to magazines or watching gardening shows on television. I remember those days "up North".

I also remember my husband digging out of the snow, just to have a snowplow come by and close up the driveway again. He taught me new words from his Navy days when that happened. I digress.

Here in South Carolina, we alternate between 70 degree and 20-degree days and nights. We can garden year round if we choose the right flowers and vegetables. Pansies, violas, broccoli, cabbage, and even lettuce grow in the sunny wintertime.

I thought this was a wonderful thing when I moved here twenty some odd years ago.

My thoughts have changed. Because we can garden year-round and many of you cannot, I feel compelled to plant and harvest, weed and divide, haul pots indoors and out, following the whims and vagaries of the weather on any given day. This is not easy. I am a tired gardener.

Dreams of snow outside and a warm fire indoors are as pleasant as sugarplums dancing in my head. Somehow, memories of all that digging out and iced locks and windshields don’t hamper my longing for a few days of just loafing. Give me just a small number of my good old days when the roads were impassable and we stayed indoors or donned cross-country skis to go to town.

I know snow is not your favorite thought right now as many of you dig out of several feet of blizzard. To me, snow sounds mighty good right now. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HOLIDAYS to all. Enjoy each moment. As sure as the seasons change, all will melt and it will be HOT again.

---Posted by Anne K Moore, December 22 2008---