I went out for a walk yesterday morning, and because the temperature was ten degrees (-12 C), I wore my thick wool mittens. (And other clothing, obviously. Not just mittens. That would make this an entirely different kind of story, wouldn’t it?)

When I was a boy, my parents knew what to get me for Christmas: rockets, race cars, chemistry sets, that kind of thing. But when I was a teenager, they weren’t sure and I didn’t know what to tell them when they asked me, “What do you want for Christmas?” One year, I told my dad I’d like a pair of these thick woolen mittens I found in a Eddie Bauer catalogue. He seemed a little surprised, probably because it was like asking for a tie or a pair of socks, but he got the mittens for me. That was over forty years ago.

I was thinking about this while I was out walking yesterday because I still have those mittens. They came with a nylon overshell which I lost many years ago, but the mittens are still in good shape, probably owing to the fact that I haven’t had to wear them all that often, usually only when temps are well below freezing. They’re really thick, and inside the outer layer of heavy knit wool there’s another layer of more tightly-knit wool. When temps plunge below zero, I wear a pair of merino wool knit gloves inside the mittens. My hands stay toasty warm in these.