Ok, it’s time to admit it, everyone, Winter just isn’t that naturally aesthetic. It’s cold and we care more about how freezing our fingers are than the ugly (but warm) coat we’re wearing which is strategically thin enough to stuff into the locker no one has or our backpacks. Our breath floating in front of us skews more like some transparent stalker and after the fourth time, it becomes more of a dreaded reminder of how cold we are than picture-worthy. With that, I must say, because winter is so naturally uninspiring, we as a society have dedicated ourselves to the glamification of Winter. Trust me, Pinterest has been working overtime for these results. So, I have decided to showcase everyone’s work of making Winter a little less blah, even if we’ll be over it by the end of the month. I’ve categorized my unwilling participants into their aesthetically approved categories of books, food, and music, because if we have to go through Winter, so do they.
Books
Here are some books that get me into the aesthetic of Winter while still keeping me in denial that it didn’t go away after December.
Titles: Little Women, and One Day in December
Aesthetic:
The support club for wanting and getting your best friend/sister’s man (trust me there were reasons, not the best ones, but they were there).
Aesthetic Rating: 11/10
Reasoning: What feels like our iconic cold season more than two books 150 years apart from each other both proving that relationships in the Winter of 1869 were just as chaotic and a little morally problematic as they are now.
Titles: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and The Book Thief
Aesthetic:
This guy who is the literal embodiment of darkness keeps following me around for some reason.
Aesthetic Rating: 9/10
Reasoning: Both books are long and semi-tame until you get to the last couple of chapters and realize you’ve been tricked into believing there would be any kind of happily ever after. Something which these books and Winter have in common(just replace months with the delusion that Winter is full of snowy aesthetics rather than just cold).
Titles: Wuthering Heights, Anna Karenina, and Murder on the Orient Express
Aesthetic: Looking smart and mysterious in a bookstore-probably Barnes in Nobles because there is a shortage of cozy small bookstores for a supposedly aesthetic state like Connecticut.
Aesthetic Rating: 8/10
Reasoning: If you can’t be warm or comfortable yet in that bad plane lighting, at least you’ll be aesthetic, and that’s all we strive for.
Titles: The Betrayals, and Spinning Silver
Aesthetic: You’re done with pretending Winter is the time for ‘insightful literature’ or ‘doing work’ and ready to pick up a book with fake people making fake decisions.
Aesthetic rating: 8.5/10
Reasoning: It’s freezing, but if you can’t escape to Aruba, another world will have to work for now, even if that other world is set in a place that supposedly has ‘brutal winters’ and is ‘set against the harshest conditions in the cold’ but because it’s in our minds and we’re inside we can just turn the heat on to a good 76 degrees.
Food
Nothing says Winter more than eating or drinking warm items to distract us from the cold, and these just happen to be some of the main substitutions for actual warmth or happiness people seem to use in the many months of Winter.
Hot Chocolate
Aesthetic: You waited all year for the weather to be cold enough for you to fully appreciate this warm chocolate liquid, only for you to realize the packets you do have of it are 3 years old and you then forget to get new ones because the once-a-year craving has passed.
Aesthetic Rating: 9/10
Reasoning: I personally love it but the idea of it is better than the taste. And there’s something oddly embarrassing about the progression of events of being out in the cold for a while and having a craving for hot chocolate then the awkward car ride with the heat on, then finally drinking that hot chocolate which let’s be honest, doesn’t taste the same as you thought it would when you were freezing.
WARM Chocolate Chip Cookies
Aesthetic: When the weather is cold and the only thing warm enough to solve that problem is your oven or at least the cookies you take out of it (please go for the second option).
Aesthetic Rating: 19/10
Reasoning: They’re not hard to make, just the motivation sometimes just isn’t there. But what’s more Winter than cookies, with really just anything but milk(-I mean, I think we’ve progressed enough as a society to let the cows rest for now) the cookies can survive on their own but if you feel like it’s needed for the aesthetic I suggest refraining, or inventing white food dye and putting it into chocolate milk or something because I don’t know, it just sounds like something you would do.
Gingerbread Cookies
Aesthetic: You read or were reminded of the fairytale so now, like the townspeople, you have a craving for the Gingerbread Man.
Aesthetic Rating: 5/10
Reasoning: I really don’t like these but they’re a Winter staple because frosting little cookie people seem to distract people from frostbite.
Soup (No one has an exact favorite type, either you can’t decide, don’t care, or worse you don’t like soup)
Aesthetic: Vegetables may not be anyone’s thing but warm it up in a microwave-safe bowl and add some questionably thick liquid and it tastes delicious.
Aesthetic Rating: 5/10
Reasoning: It’s Winter and cold and soup is soup and it’s hot, I think it was meant to be
MUSIC
Music and Winter aesthetics go hand in hand, they both need each other as headphones help keep our ears from freezing,(headphones are awkward with silence), and music is just an attention seeker. Winter is a season of necessity and music can either make you pretend like you’re sitting by a fire or at least keep you from jumping into one from being forced to endure waking up at 6 am with no sun and no warmth. While the time to aesthetically walk around outside to these songs as the leaves are falling is now replaced with ice on the sidewalk and looking aesthetically at windows, my job is to make Winter aesthetic so here are the only songs that can ever make that true. Disclaimer: Taylor Swift will make an appearance in pretty much every category.
Oddly Specific Aesthetic: It’s cold but it doesn’t mean the music has to be sad or mention Winter.
Songs: ‘Dancing Queen’ by Abba- Aesthetic Rating: 7.5/10
‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’ by Taco- Aesthetic Rating: 8/10,
‘Toms Diner’ by Suzanne Vega- Aesthetic Rating: 9/10
Overall Aesthetic Rating: 8/10
Oddly Specific Aesthetic: Winter but make consist of dramatic relationships and lost love or whatever.
Songs: ‘Someone New’ by Hozier- Aesthetic Rating: 6.5/10
‘Line Without a Hook’ by Ricky Montgomery- Aesthetic Rating: 11/10
‘Tis the Damn Season’ by Taylor Swift- Aesthetic Rating: 13/10
Overall Aesthetic Rating: 10/10
Oddly Specific Aesthetic: The embodiment of Winter, congratulations for embracing the season that’s too long and too cold, negative 30 degrees, along with the accepted truth of never going outside without a non-flattering coat, and all.
Songs: ‘Let it Snow’- Aesthetic Rating: 15/10 and
‘Winter Wonderland’- Aesthetic Rating: 22/10, both by whoever is your preferred singer, trust me, you have a lot of options (mostly consisting of Michael Buble but we can find a way around that)
Overall Aesthetic Rating: 18.5/10
Oddly Specific Aesthetic: Songs that mention December in their titles which I take to mean its acknowledgment that it’s the best Winter season, or in other words my bias. Though since these pretty much are all sad I’m starting to think one of my favorite seasons may be ‘the’ drama, I mean either that or it’s all the homework blurring my loyalties, I don’t know at this point.
Songs: ‘Back to December’ by Taylor Swift-Aesthetic Rating: 13.5/10
‘If We Make it Through December’ by Phoebe Bridgers
Overall Aesthetic Rating: 22/10
In Conclusion
These are the aesthetics of winter. In the spirit of the season itself, every time you thought this article was over, it just somehow kept going. Make sure to appreciate the aesthetics of winter and have fun… or not. Either way, I’ll see you in April.