Parka-Plegia

I've lucked out with some unseasonably warm temperatures this month.  I have nothing against the cold (there's not such thing as bad weather, just bad gear) but it has been nice to have a chance to get acclimatized to the conditions a bit over my first few weeks up north. The coldest it's been so far is -33 with the windchill but it's generally been steady in the - mid-teens.  My walk to work is about 15 minutes each way and on the colder days I've been wearing my ski pants over my work pants to keep warm.  Add to the ski pants my giant tourist parka, hat, mittens, scarf and boots and I'm pretty much parka-plegic by the time I'm all bundled up.  I somehow manage to waddle my way to work with limited use of my joints, sweating buckets by the time I get there, swearing to myself that I'm not going to be so ridiculously afraid of the cold the next day.  But every morning I check out Environment Canada's Weather and I see the high negative numbers and convince myself I need to put on every single piece of warm clothing I own just to step foot outside.  I am slowly learning though!  Today I didn't even wear my tourist parka!  After thinking that maybe my parka was a bit overkill and after seeing all the locals in their 'normal' winter coats, I decided that since it was a balmy -14C I would simply wear my snowboard jacket to walk to work.  I wasn't cold per say, but I definitely did miss my parka.  For no other reason than it's so cozy that I could curl up into a ball and nest in it.  My 'normal' winter coat does not have that coziness to it.  Yes it kept me plenty warm and yes I realized that I don't NEED my parka, but I decided that I LOVE my parka so I'm going to keep wearing it, even when the temperatures aren't necessarily cold enough to justify it.

The whole point of the above ramblings was to ask the question I've been asking myself since I arrived:

  At what temperature is it acceptable to be wearing ski pants over work pants?  

There's gotta be some kind of temperature threshold in which it's ok for adults to be bundled up like school children.