How to stop griping and start embracing winter in Northeast Ohio: Our Best Life

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Some Clevelanders hate winter. Once Christmas is over and the new year dawns, they grit their teeth and gripe about the cold and snow until March – or beyond.

But why not embrace what feels like a real January, where snow has transformed the tired brown landscape to a whimsical world of white?

Winter can feel magical, if you take it seriously — unlike my middle schoolers, whom I have to nag to wear a coat to school.

You can’t love winter if your only interaction takes place in frigorific parking lots, dashing between your car and your destination, without boots, gloves or tuque (a Canadian word for winter hat I wish we would all adopt).

Yes, it’s cold. Yes, I prefer 75 degrees and sunshine.

But we are Clevelanders. Like the classic graphic tee, which I own in pink: “You gotta be tough.”

And you gotta deal with a 10-day streak of temperatures that didn’t break 32 degrees, whether you like it or not. The good news is our daily allotment of snow stayed on the ground.

Unlike cold rain, you can play in the snow. You can ski or snowboard, snowshoe or cross-country ski. You can sled or make snow angels, and if its warm enough make snowpeople or have a snowball fight. Snow days are the most beloved of all school holidays because of their inherent surprise.

If you get a bluebird day with snow, even better. The sunshine bouncing off the ground can lift your spirit in bounds.

And even if you don’t, extra daylight increases serotonin levels in your brain, helping you regulate mood, sleep and appetite.

Go ice skating at an outdoor rink, like in downtown Akron or Cleveland, or in a flooded pocket park in Shaker Heights.

Hike through the woods in the Metroparks, or a just take walk around the block in the dark. (And while you’re out there, why not be a good neighbor and shovel the sidewalk. if you’re able?)

The snow softens everything; the quiet it creates feels like meditation.

When you return home, stomp your boots, shake off the flakes and get cozy under a blanket on your couch. If you have a fireplace, take advantage. Make hot chocolate or tea and curl up with a good book. This is gezellig, a Dutch word that captures a cozy feeling of warmth, light and comfort, shared with loved ones.

I made my 11-year-old daughter sled with me a few weekends ago. Because it’s weird if a grown-up sledded by themselves. But I will ski solo any time, doing laps of moguls on North Bowl at Boston Mills.

I’ve been skiing with my family at the Boston Township enclave (“resort” is way too fancy a word for the cluster of runs) since I joined ski club in third grade. I took my kids when they were still bundled in sleepers in their car seat carrier, plunking them on a table for my dad to watch while my mom and I skied. When they were 2, my mom started teaching them.

It’s an investment to teach your kids to ski. You spend years on the bunny hill, calming tantrums and yelling “Turn! Turn!” and occasionally bribing with hot pretzels, while wishing you were swishing down black diamonds. But like so much of the hard work of parenting, the effort is so, so worth it.

Sharing my hobby with my kids means I get to keep doing it. Because now on winter weekends, we meet up with my mom and my sister’s family for fresh air and daylight and exercise. It’s a sport I hope will improve their winters for the rest of their lives.

This year, we skiers have lucked out with snow, both natural and manmade. While last year, it was Jan. 17 before Boston Mills opened any of its advanced terrain, this year North Bowl was open before Christmas. And we’ve had real powder to play on.

With climate change, we’re seeing warmer winters and less snow. A 2023 study by the National Ski Areas Association predicts that if climate change is left unchecked, ski resorts in several states, including Ohio, could lose between 61% to 81% of their operational days by mid-century. A group called Save Our Snow (helpfully nicknamed SOS) compiles information on what the ski industry is doing to combat climate change.

Across the globe, 2024 was the hottest year ever, beating the record set the year before and breaching the international goal set in 2021 that aimed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times.

That may be good news to Clevelanders who don’t want to don a parka to walk their dog. But how cute are dogs in the snow, whether they’re romping like my golden retriever or wearing a coat and booties?

With our 64 inches annually, we don’t even rank in the top 10 cities for average seasonal snow totals. We’re bested by:

Syracuse, New York, 128 inches a year

Erie, Pennsylvania, 104 inches

Rochester, New York, 102 inches

Buffalo, New York, 96 inches

Boulder, Colorado, 93 inches

Duluth, Minnesota, 90 inches

Flagstaff, Arizona, 90 inches

Anchorage, Alaska, 78 inches

Grand Rapids, Michigan, 78 inches

Worcester, Massachusetts, 73 inches

Now that Lake Erie has begun to freeze, we’ll have less lake effect snow.

But the next time we get a pile of it, pull on your snowpants, go out and play. Because loathing winter won’t make it pass any quicker.

Cleveland.com content director Laura Johnston writes weekly about life in her 40s in the column, Our Best Life. Subscribe to the newsletter to get the column delivered to your inbox Friday mornings. Find her on Instagram @ourbestlifecle.