Christmas Ornament #4: Red Hat Lady

You might think that our annual Christmas ornament is a big deal at our house, but it's really not.  We put the tree up each year the day after Thanksgiving, and then about a week before Christmas we realize that we haven't bought a new ornament that year.  So, during a regular shopping trip, we stop by the ornament section and see if something catches our eye.  If we don't find anything we like we don't get anything, but we're not all that picky.  This is just to say that we don't visit 20 specialty shops and spend hours searching for the perfect ornament.  We just pick from what happens to cross our path.  Such was the case in 2007 when we stumbled across the Red Hat Lady:

It's hard to see with that feather boa getting in the way, but she has a purple bell body, a red feather boa and a red hat.  When we saw her, we knew she was just too fabulous to pass up.  We didn't know it at the time, but she belongs to the Red Hat Society.  There is great poem by Jenny Joseph titled "Warning" which begins, "When I am an old woman I shall wear purple / With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me."  This prompted a woman in California to give a few friends red hats for their birthdays, and then in 1998 the Red Hat Society was formed, which is a social club for women.  Now that I know they're a thing, I've seen a group of them once or twice out having lunch at a restaurant or something like that.  The poem is about how when she is older, she will be able to do unconventional things and "make up for the sobriety of my youth."  So now, when I see our Red Hat Lady, I think a little bit about small acts of rebellion against society's expectations for good behavior.