I now have the silliest winter hat on the planet, and I am proud to say that I look like an absolute doof in it. What do you wear in the wintertime? Do you get silly or not?

-- Kymm Zuckert (hedgehog@hedgehog.net), December 02, 2000

Answers

I bought it last Tuesday at a local Christmas tree event: a red flashing Rudolph nose on a black elastic--it goes great with my white glittery antlers. I wore them to my 15 year old's bowling match and stopped play. The other adults were agog--my child just laughed and said "Mom, it's so YOU!!!" She's very special.

-- Karen (phgreen@uswest.net), December 03, 2000.

I've had my eyes on some mittens that look like dragons for quite awhile now. I need to buy them before winter is over.

-- Jen (Winter@nyc.com), December 03, 2000.

350 years ago in the late 1980s, I got a holiday cardigan that is - quite- noticeable. It's black, with embroidery in bright red, vivid blue and green, and with a two inch wide green border down the collar and around the waist. The green is sort of mottled, giving it the appearance of malachite. The first time I wore it to the office - everyone- exclaimed over it, to the extent that someone made a button for me that said "Ask me about my sweater." I'm particularly fond of wearing it with my "No Fruitcake" button. But cardigans just aren't as hip now as they were 13 years ago, so I'm giving it a rest this season.

In terms of hats, I picked up a Scandanavian knit hat at the MIT Womens League Craft Fair three or four years ago, returning to the table several times before committing to a purchase. It's wedgewood blue with designs in yellow and rust, and it sits rather squarely on my head with its tassel. My friends call it my Norman Parkinson hat, as that fabulous photographer wore a similar one (of velvet and magnificent embroidery) when he was working.

/Robert

-- Robert (rbdimmick@earthlink.net), December 03, 2000.

mittens on strings -- when I've had these, I just ran the string through the coat sleeves, so I didn't have to put them on before putting on my coat. What's causing that problem for you, Kymm?

Anita of Anita's BOD and Anita's LOL

-- Anita Rowland (anitar@halcyon.com), December 04, 2000.

yesterday someone at my church gave my daughter a baby dwarf hamster. we knew it was coming, and we had something to carry it home in, but it was so cold that i was afraid it'd freeze so i added my black knit hat for it to snuggle in. the hamster made it home fine, but my hat now has hamster, um, excrement, in it. so until i can either get a new hat or wash that one, i'm wearing my daughters pikachu hat.

-- nicole (nicolemrw@go.com), December 04, 2000.

No, no, by putting them on I don't mean putting them on my hands, but stringing them through my coat, which I am wearing, and so while I am finishing my, er, ablutions, I have to be aware not to dip.

-- Kymm Zuckert (kymmz1@yahoo.com), December 04, 2000.

Man, I was afraid of how that hamster story was going to end in a thread about headgear. How many hamsters does it take to make a hat, anyway? I have a hat that I tell everyone is made of squirrels, but I think it's actually leftover bits of mink. The pieces are long, thin triangles that meet at a point on top of my head, like an oniondome. I also have a faux-rabbit hat with big ear flaps and tassels dangling from the flaps, a faux-shearling hat in a modified stovepipe shape, a double-breasted brass-buttoned faux-indeterminate-animal jacket with a huge peplum that looks as if it were made from the hide of a skinned muppet, and a gen-u-wine enormous-upturned-collar rabbit-fur jacket from the seventies. (Unfortunately, I was wearing this when I went to the pet store with Dennis to pick up some cat chow, when we saw the most beautiful buff-colored agouti bunny. I exclaimed, "Doesn't he have the most gorgeous coat you've ever seen?" and the response was "Yes, Cruella.")

The hats were all a couple bucks each and the jackets were twenty and fourteen bucks, respectively. I [heart] thrift-store shopping. I also got me a pair of cheetah-print gloves and a giant pair of brown fleece mittens like oven mitts.

I don't get why anyone would carry a black umbrella in the rain. (I live in Seattle. Winter means rain here.) Like it's not depressing enough out as it is -- why not blot out the sky with a shroud of black? Dressing like a doof is an important part of combatting inclement weather.

-- Kim Rollins (kimrollins@yahoo.com), December 06, 2000.

It's so hard to get intentionally silly in the winter in Texas, because it's not always that cold. And when it is, people are unintentionally silly because we either overdress and all the Northerners laugh at us, or we underdress and freeze, or start putting on any stray bits of clothes that are nearby.

I have a blue velvet opera coat that I bought in college but the sleeves are too short to wear it over regular clothes. And somehow it's never quite cold enough to wear it for formal events, damnit.

I've noticed that many Southerners shop for winter coats and accessories very sensibly, because since we wear them so rarely they can be made to last for a decade or so. You rarely see any truly silly winter gear around here, unless you count the fur coats that some of those Dallas women insist on wearing. We also tend to ignore the wool in favor of chenille or leather or other fabrics that don't itch so much when it's warmer.

Those dragon gloves sound way cool, though. I might well buy some if I saw them here. I also wish I could get some of those hand-puppet mittens that I had as a child.

-- Jette (jette@rootaction.net), December 07, 2000.

I have little Tigger mitts! They're orange and black (of course!) and they each have a Tigger head on the top. They are so cute that i couldn't resist buying them even though they were for kids and thus just a wee bit too small. I can cram my hands in there if i try, and i do love them.

-- sherry (sherry@masc.ca), December 07, 2000.