Gratitude for gloves and mittens

Tonight I am grateful for my gloves and mittens. I was reminded last night that I did not own gloves or mittens for much of my childhood. Instead, we wore socks on our hands in the winter.

Gloves and mittens were presumably too expensive for a family with a very limited means. We were also fairly irresponsible in terms of keeping track of our belongings as children.

Had we been given mittens (and perhaps we had been given them at some point), we would have likely lost them.

You’d think that kids who had so little would take better care of their things, but that just wasn’t the case. Having so little, we placed considerably less value on personal possessions.

Stuff never meant very much to us. So the lack of gloves and mittens seemed normal at the time.

It was normal.

But those socks never kept my hands warm or dry, no matter how many pairs I wore at one time.

Today I own a pair of $65 mittens. I wear them to Patriots games, and my hands are always toasty warm. I also own a pair of fur-lined gloves, a pair of gloves that can be used on a touch screen, and two other random pairs. I may even own driving gloves, though I’m not sure where they might be. I also have a pair of mittens that can be buttoned back in order to expose my fingers if needed.

Compared to my childhood, I am drunk on mittens and gloves.

More important, my children have enough mittens and gloves to keep her hands warm as well (as soon as she agrees to wear them on a regular basis).

Kids can be quite annoying when it comes to donning winter gear, as I have learned.

So tonight I am grateful for my bounty of winter garb. I made it through childhood just fine and have no complaints, but it’s nice to know that my daughter won’t be pulling long, white athletic socks over the sleeves of her coat in order to stay warm.