Complaint: I forgot about the layering.

I spent the past ten years wearing at best one full layer of clothing, given the California balminess to which I grew accustomed.

So now I’m finding that here in the Midwest/East Coast general region, I need layers.

Lots and lots of layers.

When I say I'm cold to people here, everybody laughs and gives the same advice: "Layers. The secret is layers!"

I forgot about that.

My Canadian upbringing surely prepared me for this. But years of blood-thinning Cali heat have taken a toll on my system.

The good news is, it doesn’t matter how toned, skinny, fit or fat you are. It’s all buried. Under layers.

So my obsessing about my muffin top? Not so noticeable here, at least for the winter.

There’s a reason we eat a lot at the holidays, at least out here. We need the fat to stay warm.

So I’ve been buying the kids long underwear and introducing them to the concept that it has to be worn UNDER something. They just put theirs on and pranced around the house. I was all, “No no, you put clothes on TOP of them.” Since we’re into our fifth week without a functioning furnace, they soon got the hang of it.

Right now I’m wearing fingerless gloves (How Dickensian! And why, exactly is that considered Dickensian anyway? Did Oliver Twist wear these in the book, or did a costume designer put them in “Oliver!” and start a trend?) two wool sweaters, a scarf, an undershirt, long underwear, jeans and socks with wool slippers.

And I’m STILL cold.

I just hate the feeling of long underwear pants riding up under your jeans. I mean I really hate that feeling. So I’m not wearing any and that’s probably why I’m so freakin’ cold. Did I mention I’m also wearing a fleece hat with ear flaps?

Ah well.

Frigidity trumps fashion.

I’m already looking forward to spring. I’ll probably have to stop eating so much cake around, say, March. That gives me four months of culinary abandon.

Let the gluttony begin.