We practically become hermits during winter nights. My wife and I both despise cold weather. Darkness and Cold Weather sucks even more. The end of Daylight Savings Time is mourned at my home.
I usually drive straight home from the office and pull into my warm garage. If I need to run errands it will be during my lunch hour. I can tolerate cold better when there’s sunlight.
We both really wanted to go out tonight for a nice dinner. But decided to just stay in and eat a pot pie. Neither of us wanted to brave the cold and darkness.
It’s so much different in the summer. Daylight until 8pm. We go for leisurely dinners at 6:30 and have a nice evening. We eat out 4 nights a week in the summer.
I know it’s an age thing. I never gave nighttime a second thought when I was in college. Nighttime was for dating, crusiing the streets, and having fun. I began liking it less as I entered my forties.
Does the end of daylight savings time, darkness, and cold ruin your dinner plans and errand running too?
Well, heck, sunset is around 4 pm near the solstice, I sort of have to be willing to be out and about during darkness part of the winter.
Yes, I tend to stay in more when the earlier darkness, but not to a huge degree. It’s more because certain activities I might do on a summer’s evening, like gardening, is sort of impossible in the winter in a pitch black backyard under a cover of snow.
You get dark by 4pm? Wow. I think 5:10pm is the earliest here and as winter rolls along it’s more like 5:30pm.
We do go out at night when it’s necessary. But, often we’ll discuss dinner plans and decide it’s just not worth getting out in the cold. Basically if we can avoid it then we do.
I don’t willingly drive at night any month of the year. Day or night, I don’t willingly drive in snow, especially as I no longer have a 4wd stick shift snow car. Heck, my dog doesn’t even like going out to pee in the snow and the dark. Although his blaze orange reflective vest and booties may have something to do with that reluctance. All the big dogs might laugh at him.
I do go out to the small grocery about 2 miles away for basics. But I order gluten free items on-line rather than make the 50 mile round trip to the big grocery store.
I don’t like being very far from home when it’s so cold.
I’m telling you, it’s not even cold where I am but it’s DARK at 5:30 and I’m pretty much home and in my jambes at that point. I’m really not into being out after that. A friend called me the other night and was on her way to a meeting at 8:30. I thought she was nuts, she might as well have said it was at 1am. Ugh, dark.
I was noticing how much the cold and dark is starting to weigh in the decision of going out or not. Last winter was brutal and I really didn’t unless I needed something rather than wanted. I’m noticing this winter my inclination is much closer to last winter than the years before, even though it really isn’t that bad yet.
I don’t like running around doing errands even during summer evenings; after work I like to wind down and relax. I like it even less if it’s pitch dark outside, but I probably wouldn’t let it stop me from going out for supper.
Lucky you. It’s already getting completely dark by the time I leave work at 4:30 and it’ll be dark by just after 4 next month (4:09pm to be exact.)
I don’t go out as much in the dark, but three weeks from now the only time I’ll see daylight is on the way into work, so obviously I must do some night driving. I hate driving in the winter, hate driving in the dark during the winter, and hate driving in the dark and in the snow most of all, but I’ll be doing it all out of necessity.
I get what the OP is saying. Who cares if it’s light outside an hour earlier in the morning? I’ll just be sleeping anyway. But losing an hour of light in the evening sucks. It’s a lot more pleasant to drive when it’s light outside and I don’t like losing an hour of that. I find myself staying home a lot more.
My habits–which only rarely synchronize with most people’s, anyway–don’t change perceptibly with winter or the time change. I’m fairly reclusive in general, but I go out whenever I have a reason to, irrespective of light or weather (short of actually hazardous conditions, like an ice-storm). If I go for a walk, it’s usually after dark, winter or summer.
I did buy a coat today. I happened to see a suitable one while shopping for other things, and remembered that I haven’t had one for years. I usually ignore the weather, but a time or two last winter, I thought it might be nice to have something to wear over my tshirt. So that’s my concession to winter.
I’d like to complain that the thread title and the poll question are in conflict. I answered “Yes, I leave the house after 5:45pm”, not “Yes, the end of daylight saving time, darkness, and cold ruin my dinner plans and errand running.”
I probably don’t count, because I work nights. If I didn’t leave the house in the dark I’d be homeless and starve. I also live in Texas, so it doesn’t really get that cold, even on winter nights. It does get dark, but it does that every night.
As a night worker in Finland, I sometimes don’t see sunlight for weeks. Right now sunset is already at 3 pm with day length under 7 hours and it’ll still get darker for a month. If I want to see a bright light in the sky my best bet is a nice full moon on a clear night, though clear nights tend to be bloody cold.
The wife had some sweet potatoes she picked up a couple days ago. Baking them with our chicken pot pies now.