So, when it’s warm, cotton sheets; we have linen tea towels, and from how they feel I honestly can’t imagine sleeping on linen sheets, but maybe it’s just a name, “bed linens”. When it gets colder, though, flannel sheets are better. They say that when you sleep you should turn the temperature down, but on the other hand you can’t really sleep when you’re cold, so instead of the flannel sheets why not just leave the heat up? Someone somewhere has probably explained this, if I could be bothered to go look. But maybe I will, sometime. One thing I’ve noticed about flannel sheets is that they appear to come in a wider array of colours and prints than do regular cotton sheets. Is this to make the colder seasons more festive? I’ve never actually seen any holiday-themed sheets, though I suppose they’re out there. But those you’d only really want for the holiday season, and winter runs a lot longer than that, so do you put them away after the holiday season is over, like the holiday decorations? Or do keep them in the bedding rotation for the entire winter? Sheep are a popular theme for flannel sheet prints, and there’s that association between sheep and sleep, so you’d think that there’d be sheep-printed regular sheets too. But again, there’s this apparent exuberance when it comes to designing flannel sheets that seems to be lacking over on the regular sheet side of things. We also have some bird-themed flannels: owls and cardinals. Owls and sleep, okay. Cardinals and, well, winter? I suppose if I think about it I can recall an association between cardinals and winter, though actually around here I only ever remember seeing cardinals from spring to autumn. Actually, owls and sleep? Owls are nocturnal. So, I suppose there’s a joke to be made, if in your household you were prone to making such jokes, that the owls on the flannels would keep you up all night. Yuk yuk. Anyway, most of the time, I suppose you wouldn’t really notice the print because you’d be sleeping, or it would be dark, or, well, whatever. Who sits and admires the pattern on their sheets? Or, for that matter, the pattern on their wallpaper. Or a lot of home decorations; they seem to function more like background music than something that people enjoy. Also, is wallpaper still a thing? Another odd thing about flannels that sets them apart from regular sheets. On some sets, I’ve seen the fitted sheet shrink to the point that it no longer fits on the bed. The top sheet isn't a problem in this regard, as it doesn’t really have to “fit”. So, we’ve got a few top flannels for which the bottoms have been discarded. Not much we can do with them, as there’s only the one bed, and we have plenty of rags around for shoe polishing and whatnot. Anyway, I don’t recall this ever having been a thing with our regular sheets.