If you want to enjoy winter, just be a kid

If you want to enjoy winter, you just have to be a mitten-losing, snowball-making, snowflake-tasting, sled ride-whooping kid.

It’s easy!

You can start with a cheap plastic saucer and just enough snow. Then find a big hill somewhere, settle your creaky old bones in and let ‘er rip.

I’ll tell you what happens as you cruise toward the bottom, wind-watered eyes stuck shut, lips pulled back in an ice-cold ear-to-ear grin, voice squawking like some prehistoric bird.

The years just melt away.

The faster you sail down the hill, the younger you feel. The fatter the snowflake, the more magical the ride.

Wisconsin winters are made for kids — the little ones who sleep with their jammies turned inside out in hopes of a snow day, and the big ones who get a little giddy when the Farmer’s Almanac predicts an extra snowy year.

Build a snowman, make a fort, start a snowball fight, flop yourself a snow angel.

Let yourself be a kid.

The years spin faster than you realize and you can’t slow them down.

But you can feel just like you did 50 years ago when you looked out your classroom window and saw the first snowfall of the year.

You can yank on your boots and coat and head toward the nearest sled hill and race a couple of startled kids down.

Last one to the bottom is a rotten egg.

All included!

Go!