Living in the northern hemisphere (far north), a harsh winter (and fall) is usually shrugged off as just another season.  But I can easily be depressed, blue, extra tired, and bored while I live through it.  It’s even worse for kids.  I don’t want about a third of my life to be lived and wasted that way anticipating for the summer month!  So I decided to plan out a way to at least break the routine and soften it up a bit; it still won’t be as fun as summer, but at least I’m not wasting that much time of my life waiting for the weather to change.  So what did I decide to do? Well…

• Make a list of all the indoor places to be (i.e. trampoline park, laser tag, Chuck E. Cheese’s – even for adults, bowling, aquarium, cinema, science centre etc.). Go to one each weekend (if you don’t have other commitments).  For things that can be done outdoors in the fall or are seasonal (such as apple picking, honey farm, cheese factory etc.) do those in warmer days.
• Make sure you break the week and go out on school nights, whether it is for a coffee break, or the mall just to walk around at least once, if not twice a week (Tuesday and Thursday or just Wednesday).
• Do errands (with the kids) on school nights, it’ll free up your weekends and break your weeknight routine.
• Make something every couple of weeks, have breakfast for dinner (eggs or pancakes), make a game night on a school night.
• Go out to eat or dine in once a week and make a movie night indoors, even if you sleep a half hour late.

The gist of breaking the winter blues is really to break the routines we get stuck to.  It’s important to have routines, and if you’re tired you should sleep.  But once in a while sleeping a bit late and going somewhere just to break the day to day – weeknights are not dead nights.  This adds a sense of fun to your winters and blurs the lines of weeknights vs. weekends in a good way.  Give it a try for a t least a month and let me know if it made any difference, it has for me.