The 10 best, the ten worst

Now that I've endured a cold Minnesota winter, one of the coldest in 10 years I've heard, I think of myself as a pretty good critic of the subject. I thought I would come up with some top Ten lists, although the two opposing sides seem to be a little lopsided.

The 10 Best things about winter:

10: Snow is pretty
9: It's easier to get into the Christmas spirit when it's cold and you don't have anything else to look forward to
8: You don't have to actually put away any Christmas decorations, inside or out, until the snow starts melting (at least that seems to be the way it is out here when there are still wreaths on people's doors in March!)
7: Potential for winter sports
6: you have an excuse to not exercise anymore
5: Sledding? (with a question mark because the one day we went sledding it was actually too cold to spend more than 20 minutes on the slope)
4: you get to drink more hot chocolate
3: you get to expand your wardrobe
2: Snow is pretty (Sorry, I couldn't come up with more)
1: White Christmas is pretty much a guarantee

10 worst things about winter

10: Minnesota Lazy Fat Butt Syndrome
9: Your friends and you don't actually do any winter sports
8: You can't do exercise outside- contributing to Fat Butt
7: Seasonal depression
6: You have to expand your wardrobe- potentially spending lots of money
5: constant fear of slipping on the ice
4: Hibernation sickness-
3: Your friends getting towed for parking on the road when a snow plow wants to come by- night plow roads
2: generally inactivity in everyone and everything that you meet. Your parties become less and less popular and soon you think that you don't have any friends left
2: Everytime you go outside you have to pack about a dozen articles of clothing with you and dress up your toddler in lots of extra clothes, which she can't actually wear while in her carseat because it's too bulky which leads to dressing her for the 10 seconds that it takes to get to the car from wherever you came from to the parking lot and then redressing her whenever you go out again, which in the end takes quite a long time to dress as she is generally uncooperative.
2: You plan all your vacation days for the winter, even though everyone else has cooler stuff to do going on in the summer
2: Nobody wants to visit you
2: you can't really take a road trip anywhere- generally stuck
2: You can't plan for the excessive traffic on snow days- it may take 1 1/2 to drive your 7 miles home
2: The pool closes the day after labor day
2: Your eyes hurt
2: you can't ride your bike anymore which leads to atrophy (there's no snow on the ground but I still can't ride my bike because I'm too weak!!!)
2: you have to start sleeping with a humidifyer
2: there seems to be no remedy strong enough for your dry skin
2: wool socks
2: hat hair
2: a muddy yucky garage that leads to a muddy yucky entrance which leads to a muddy house which leads to mopping the floor constantly
1: It's cold