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Baby its cold outside and so it should be, it’s nearly Thanksgiving. I think I love the fall even better than the spring because fall means winter is coming and hopefully some rainy, drizzly weather will happen. Back where we came from in Southeast Texas, it wasn’t time to begin Christmas shopping until the rainy cold weather began. Right now we have half of the equation for Christmas shopping weather with the freezing weather we’ve had in the last few days. Surely if we all write Santa Claus and ask for rain he will send us some.

I love the cold weather because fortunately I can get warm enough by piling on clothes to be comfortable but in the summer I can’t take off enough clothes to be decent, it’s just not done. I can go about in my shorts and sleeveless shirts here on my own place but I don’t leave home that way.

I just read something from the PEC about how it is three times as expensive to heat as it is to cool your home. Well, duh! So we should run around stopping up all the cracks and crevices to keep the warmth we are paying through the nose for inside the house. I wonder since the price of fuel has gone down that we will be hearing from the PEC that we will soon see a reduction in price per kilowatt hour on our monthly statement? What do you think folks? How about it Mr. Garza can we get some Christmas relief in the form of lower electric bills?

I think even us grown up folks, old timers as well as the youngsters either still have an old favorite ‘blankie’ that we love to curl up with or we have memories of one from our childhood.

Homes with these high ceilings are not conducive to evenly heating the rooms we congregate in and some of us have gotten out our favorite blankie to add to the couch for some serious television viewing. I know my kids have fold up light weight blankets close to their favorite chair in the winter time to tuck their feet under or hitch up under their chin.

Wintertime reminds me of my grandmothers. My maternal grandparents are the ones that spoiled me rotten because I was the only grandchild, never mind the fact that I was an absolutely precious child, right? So they did things like warm my pajama’s on top of the Dearborn heater in the bedroom and they’d be almost crispy for me to scramble into, then my granddaddy would roll up a brick in a nice thick towel after having warmed the brick and put it in the spot where my feet would touch. Oh does that conjure up warm memories? I never had to wake up to a cold room either when I would spend time them, they’d be up early to get it warm and my house shoes by the bed all warmed up as well.

My other grandmother brings up memories of heavy heavy quilts on the bed I often shared with my cousin. Mamaw was a frugal woman and she did all she could to conserve her funds and one was to not heat rooms that you just slept in, of course no one slept with a gas heater on back then for fear the pilot might go out and we’d be gassed! The bottom line was Mamaw’s bedrooms were on the north side of her house and it was like walking into a meat locker to go in there. The saving grace was that Mamaw had plenty of good old heavy quilts and she piled them on our bed. There was no twisting or turning or cutting up because you would get a spot warmed up and you dared not move to a cold spot AND anyway it was very hard to move around under the weight of three or four heavy quilts and a few blankets.

At Mamaw’s house certain things were required before going to bed and one was a cocktail of prune juice and you know what that was for, and a good rubbing of Vick’s either straight onto your chest (sick or not) or if sick then she rubbed the Vicks all over an old clean piece of flannel and pinned that inside of your pajamas if it wasn’t long enough to tie around your neck. The other requirement was to put your index finger into the jar of Mentholatum and come out with a wad of it and deposit same into first one nostril and then the other and no double dipping was allowed. You were to rub the Mentholatum around and high as you could in your nostrils. Never mind that the other grandmother said never to put anything smaller than your elbow into your nose or ear! Conflicting instruction but the wise grandchild did not dispute the grandmother in charge at the time.

It was years later I was telling someone about putting Mentholatum in my nose as a child and they were horrified. I was told that it states on the jar NOT for internal use ever! Sure enough I read on the label and it clearly states ‘do not take internally’. Well it is apparent that Mamaw didn’t read that piece of news or didn’t consider it relevant and I can say that it didn’t ruin my nasal membranes so I guess no harm no foul.

Pat and I drug out our favorite blankies which these days are not blankets at all but down comforters and we had them on our bed for the cold spell. Comforters are great but I still miss the heaviness of the old timey quilts our grandparents used to have. I think the last freeze we had caused us to re-equip our beds with a bit of over kill. It was plenty cold but I wore my artic weight jammies and had to shed them before the night was over or to shed some of the covers.

Any of you who have kids know about when they were little and you had to wash their special blankie for fear of them harboring germs of the worst kind, and the kid would stand by nervously at first by the washer and then the dryer waiting for the moment when ‘blankie’ would once again be deposited safely in their arms in time for a nap or bed time. Oh for the days when all it took for a bit of warmth and security was a well worn and best loved blankie.

As for us our comforters, they are carefully folded at the foot of the bed where we can easily reach them should old North wind come back and we need them. I guess we could close the windows but we do love the fresh air and if means a few more blankets on the bed, we can do that too.