It's a seasonal thing

I like winter.  I start jonesing for it in the summer. I used to live in a tiny apartment with no heat from any vents except one that was just a hole in the floor to the apartment a floor below (I could look through the floor grate in my bathroom and see people walking under me. I felt bad when I pooped stinky but not too bad because they had sex loudly.) and one that ran through the wall behind my kitchen counter.  I always had warm silverware in the winter.  But even in the apartment where winter sucked, I would lay on my couch and look out the window and all I could see was sky.  I f I didn't look downward at all there were no trees in my line of sight and  I just saw the sky and I could convince myself, just for a moment, that the brightness was reflected off of snow and it was winter.  I love winter.
I love Xmas, even thought I'm not too terribly Christian and I throw general Hanukkah things in there too since I think it would be disrespectful to bastardize one religion over another.  But I love the tree and the smell of pine, and the bright wrapping paper and candles. 
It's 80+` here and I'm dreaming about winter. Snow and long underwear and footie pajamas and hot cocoa (if you click the title it links to a hot cocoa recipe) and hot cider with a cinnamon stick in it.  Back when I was dirt poor and lived in the cold apartment (My aunt loaned me several space heaters so I was okay; I learned years later that the landlord had shut all the ducts to the upstairs at a point when the apartment was unrented and once they were opened it was warm and toasty. That sucked.) I used to spend about $5 a week on Christmas shopping so I started the first week in August.  I still feel like I'm behind on my shopping if the county fair comes and I don't have any gifts bought.
I love winter.  I hope it hits with a vengeance this year. I want snow days and blizzards and white-outs and all of it.

"More special last cocoa please"

While my mother was staying here after her brain surgery, she would often sit quietly at the table and drink coffee. This was very boring for the kids to watch, so they of course decided that it must be amazingly fun to do, since nothing could ever actually be that boring.  So Tommy would ask to drink "copy" with Doan (it's what we call her. long story) and I would make him some hot cocoa and he would sit there quietly with her and hold his head up with his hand like she did, and pretend that he had a big owie under his hair too, and then he'd get bored and go play. But they bonded so it was okay.
Now that she is gone, and the sweet "bonding with Grandma" thing is done for the moment, he still wants to drink hot cocoa all the time. (How did I not see that coming?) So at least a couple times a day I give in to his incessant begging and give him a cup of Swiss Miss.  Today Tom left to play golf and 3 hours later I caved and went to make the damn cocoa and guess what! Tom had made the last of the cocoa, not told me, and now I was the one who said yes but wasn't going to be able to follow through. I think Tom set me up.
I briefly contemplated making actual cocoa on the stove, but then I remembered that I had bought a pouch of overpriced peppermint flavored cocoa mix 5 years ago and it was smashed into a ball in the back of a cupboard.  SO I told Tommy I could make him only one cup of cocoa, that this was special cocoa, the only one of its kind in the entire world, and he would have to savor it and drink it slowly because after that there was no more cocoa in the house anywhere at all. Got it? He agreed.
Ninety seconds later he handed me an empty and oddly clean cup and asked for more special cocoa.