Hats off...!

I've never been much of one to wear hats. (That being said, I do fondly remember when I was in Mrs. Carvers second grade classroom, with the bilious green walls,at the Harry Lee Cole school, that I received, for Christmas, a red and white candy cane striped stocking cap with a grapefruit sized white pom pom. That hat was a good 3 feet from tip to brim, and reached to my knees. I adored it with an unwavering passion.) In general, however, I find hats make my head feel funny, and they are often itchy. The nice wool ones have a pungent smell, that while pleasant, becomes tiresome after a while. All hats tend to slip and slide on my fuzzy head, and then there is the issue of hat hair when the thing is removed. For those of us, like me, blessed with big, curly hair, hats reduce us to having flat, smashed hair that cannot be repaired without dunking our head in a bucket of water. And who has time for that?

So, even though I live in New England and spend more than most of my life wrapped in winter weather, I cannot warm up to hats. I did buy a new coat this year that came with a hood, and I have put that hood to good use a few times so far this season. Worn briefly it does not seem to smoosh my hair like a hat would. Then again, the sub zero winds can still dart about inside a hood, and cause my ears to thrum and tingle with cold. It's a conundrum. The above pictured duck is all set for winter in Maine... it's hat permanently attached. It does, however, look like it could use a good set of Bean boots.