(no subject)

[rivka]

Dear retailers,

I understand that you expect people to shop in advance of the season, and that therefore you stock in advance of the season as well. Reasonable enough, I suppose.

However, has it never occurred to you that children regularly lose their mittens? And that, therefore, it is absolute lunacy to "not carry mittens anymore" by the 3rd of December?

No love,
Rivka

Comments

[faxpaladin.livejournal.com]

I distinctly remember a mid-to-late winter cold snap, and not being able to find long underwear anywhere. But at least that was January or February or so. December is even more ridiculous.

[eeyorerin]

...sheesh.

They start putting out the patio furniture displays in February up here. It's like some cruel joke played by retailers.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Try Target - they seem to keep warm gloves and mittens in stock right through the winter.

Once you find them, do what my mom did and safety pin the mittens to her jacket sleeves (she used big old diaper pins, which aren't easy for small hand to unfasten). Or else the old trick of attaching a length of string or yarn to each mitten and running it up the jacket sleeves ...

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

WalMart (I know, I know) sells these great clippy things - it's basically a piece of elastic with a clip at either end: one clip for the mitten, one clip for the sleeve. Well, two pieces. :)

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Ooh - I should have known someone would have figured out how to make a product out of a good idea. And it looks like you don't even have to shop Walmart - Google "mitten clips" for dozens of vendors.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Fabric stores also sell them. The fabric stores call them "mitten clips" as well.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I get my mittens and gloves at the Army-Navy store here in town, and they DO have kids' sizes, too. (They do general warm-type-clothing as well as military surplus.)

[naomikritzer]

That's just insane. Which store stopped stocking mittens?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Target doesn't have any toddler sizes left at all, and Gap Kids thinks they might have one pair left, can't guarantee the size.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Unlike clothing stores, drugstores carry gloves (I'm not sure about mittens) through the whole winter.

[telerib.livejournal.com]

I found el cheapo supremo $1 fleece toddler mittens at the grocery store a few weeks ago. Bought 3 pairs, amazingly still have all three. I'll bring a set to church Sunday in case you haven't found any by then.

[txobserver.livejournal.com]

Yes...Walgreen's is my first stop for stuff like this. When I was spending 12 hour days at the hospital with my mother for a month, it was the only store open at 7 in the morning, and I discovered that I was able to find so many useful things...warm socks for her feet, a cheap afghan-ish blanket, etc. and there were many socks/mittens/etc. for kids.

[redbird]

So do random guys on street corners, though that may be limited to New York. Gloves, hats, scarves. Sunglasses appear to be year-round, which makes sense.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Bingo! Thank you. We found some at Rite Aid. They are not the most beautiful gloves in the world, but they were cheap and they'll keep her fingers warm.

[ewein2412]

be glad you don't live in scotland. You can't get WINTER COATS OR HATS for children after 31 October here. And god forbid you should need new school shoes between 1 Dec. and EASTER, because they don't order any in.

I am not living in a third world country and I am grateful--but I do think I would have an easier time ACCEPTING these things if I lived in communist Bulgaria.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Wow. Long's, here in the San Francisco Bay Area where it rarely gets down into the low 40s, has gloves and mittens all year long.

Color me bemused.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Sure -- they don't sell out :)

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

*laugh* A very fair point! :)

[ailbhe]

http://ailbhe.livejournal.com/2005/02/25/

"Twas Feb'ry, and the winter clothes
Did fade and vanish in the shops
And all the north end of the globe
Wore swimsuits, and plastic flip-flops."

[almeda.livejournal.com]

I can always find some at Walgreens (local drugstore chain) -- but you're right, Target and Sears and the like totally get rid of them.

[edschweppe.livejournal.com]

The letters W, T and F definitely come to mind.

You might have better luck in the future with online retailers - OTOH, neither REI nor L.L. Bean had particularly cheap mittens listed, and there is the additional time and money for shipping.