It\u2019s also why it\u2019s harder to make new friends.<\/h3>\nBecause, in all honesty, who wants to go to that kind of effort? All I want to do when the holidays are over and January spreads out, flat and unchanging, is to call in the old standbys. I want crockpot soup and spaghetti. I want old favorites on Netflix and the sweatpants from college with the hole where a pocket once was. And I only want about three to five people on my rotating schedule of daily interactions \u2013 the husband, the kids, and the best friends who don\u2019t make me try. I want to be social without being \u201csocial.\u201d<\/h3>\nAnd I\u2019m not the only one. Most of us tend to turn inward, our own version of social hibernation<\/a>, in the winter months. This makes sense. William Chopik, a psychologist and professor at Michigan State University explains, \u201cCold weather is often a barrier to venturing far from home. Meeting new people in the winter months requires a lot of effort.\u201d<\/h3>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mom-gene.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/plush-boots-3013700_1920.jpg?resize=656%2C437\")
<\/h3>\nWho wants to defrost the car and pray you don\u2019t bust it on a patch of ice in your skirt and heels? Who wants to hire a babysitter for anything other than a date with your closest people when time is money and the wind chill is eight below? You pick your people and call them to you. It\u2019s an introvert\u2019s dream. Suddenly even the extroverts are huddling up with a book and glass of wine on a Saturday night.<\/h3>\nWe all want easy listening and easy company until the earth warms up again. Even my manic kids choose to gather round me in their pajamas like I am Mother Hubbard. They want books read and hair played with and long baths just like the rest of us.<\/h3>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mom-gene.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/warm-and-cozy-1975215_1920.jpg?resize=671%2C447\")
<\/h3>\nI unwittingly made a new friend in the car pick-up line at my son\u2019s school recently. She\u2019s a fellow mom of a special needs kid and she\u2019s wry and sarcastic and feels equally ambivalent towards holiday teacher gifts. She unintentionally showed up to carpool in her UGG house shoes, but applied lipstick nonchalantly like it was all part of the plan. She\u2019s a kindred spirit.<\/h3>\nBut that doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m going to call her up to go wine tasting any time soon. For now, we will make small talk and trade school gossip and spouse stories while shivering in our puffer jackets waiting for our kids. And then we will go our separate ways.<\/h3>\nMaybe when spring rolls around and the daffodils are out and pool days are just around the corner, I will call her up and we will run away together for a few hours. We will try the new Indian restaurant downtown or grab iced coffee and walk through the park. But for now, I\u2019m content to keep it simple and invite over only those who are intimately familiar with my holey sweatpants. We will order pizza and watch reruns of \u201cVeep\u201d and wait for warmer days.<\/h3>\nThis article originally appeared on<\/a> Parent.com<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One word on the Oxford Dictionary\u2019s 2016 \u201cword of the year\u201d list spoke wonders about our nation\u2019s current mental, political, and emotional state. \u201cHygge,\u201d in case you haven\u2019t heard of it, is the Danish word for creating an intimate, cozy experience wherever you are. There\u2019s not even a direct translation into English. It\u2019s an idea, an ambiance. It\u2019s about crocheted blankets and fuzzy socks and hot toddies by the fire. It\u2019s about staging the cover …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[21,86,26],"tags":[451,46,452,263,176,34,74,453,439,100,207,49],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mom-gene.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/feet-932346_1920.jpg?fit=1920%2C1439&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ca5p-16Q","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4268"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4268"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4332,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4268\/revisions\/4332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
And I\u2019m not the only one. Most of us tend to turn inward, our own version of social hibernation<\/a>, in the winter months. This makes sense. William Chopik, a psychologist and professor at Michigan State University explains, \u201cCold weather is often a barrier to venturing far from home. Meeting new people in the winter months requires a lot of effort.\u201d<\/h3>\n<\/h3>\nWho wants to defrost the car and pray you don\u2019t bust it on a patch of ice in your skirt and heels? Who wants to hire a babysitter for anything other than a date with your closest people when time is money and the wind chill is eight below? You pick your people and call them to you. It\u2019s an introvert\u2019s dream. Suddenly even the extroverts are huddling up with a book and glass of wine on a Saturday night.<\/h3>\nWe all want easy listening and easy company until the earth warms up again. Even my manic kids choose to gather round me in their pajamas like I am Mother Hubbard. They want books read and hair played with and long baths just like the rest of us.<\/h3>\n<\/h3>\nI unwittingly made a new friend in the car pick-up line at my son\u2019s school recently. She\u2019s a fellow mom of a special needs kid and she\u2019s wry and sarcastic and feels equally ambivalent towards holiday teacher gifts. She unintentionally showed up to carpool in her UGG house shoes, but applied lipstick nonchalantly like it was all part of the plan. She\u2019s a kindred spirit.<\/h3>\nBut that doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m going to call her up to go wine tasting any time soon. For now, we will make small talk and trade school gossip and spouse stories while shivering in our puffer jackets waiting for our kids. And then we will go our separate ways.<\/h3>\nMaybe when spring rolls around and the daffodils are out and pool days are just around the corner, I will call her up and we will run away together for a few hours. We will try the new Indian restaurant downtown or grab iced coffee and walk through the park. But for now, I\u2019m content to keep it simple and invite over only those who are intimately familiar with my holey sweatpants. We will order pizza and watch reruns of \u201cVeep\u201d and wait for warmer days.<\/h3>\nThis article originally appeared on<\/a> Parent.com<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One word on the Oxford Dictionary\u2019s 2016 \u201cword of the year\u201d list spoke wonders about our nation\u2019s current mental, political, and emotional state. \u201cHygge,\u201d in case you haven\u2019t heard of it, is the Danish word for creating an intimate, cozy experience wherever you are. There\u2019s not even a direct translation into English. It\u2019s an idea, an ambiance. It\u2019s about crocheted blankets and fuzzy socks and hot toddies by the fire. It\u2019s about staging the cover …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[21,86,26],"tags":[451,46,452,263,176,34,74,453,439,100,207,49],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mom-gene.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/feet-932346_1920.jpg?fit=1920%2C1439&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ca5p-16Q","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4268"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4268"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4332,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4268\/revisions\/4332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/h3>\n