Christmas. “Tis the season for the stockings to be hung by the chimney with care…” Why? There are many theories but there seems to be no written records that confirm the reasoning. Many of us just know that we have to put out stockings by Christmas Eve or else Santa will have no place to put the goodies. This tradition combines two things I love the most: Christmas and socks.
I am sure many of you share my love of the Christmas season and its many special memories: the lights on cold dark nights twinkling around the neighborhoods, the olden hymns sang while small children dressed as the nativity walk in front of the church crowd, the aroma of baking Christmas cookies meant to be shared with family and friends; as well as the busied travel leading to the joyous arrival at others’ homes to celebrate the season together. These are just a few of mine and those I have seen in Hallmark movies this year already. (By the way, when is it legal anyway to start those holiday movies? I think they may have jumped the gun a little this year.)
I know many of you share my love of Christmas, but what about socks? Yes, I am obnoxiously obsessed with socks. I have this need to ensure my socks are appropriate for my outfit. The right color. The right length. The right thickness. Patterned or not? Casual, dressy or athletic? All questions I ask myself internally when I pick my socks for the day.
Why? Probably has to do with my age. After four decades, my sock selection has grown. When I was younger I really don’t remember many choices besides white tube socks, white dress socks and tights. So, choosing socks was not really a choice.
Today the sock selection seems countless. Good grief there is even a company that focuses on zany mismatched socks, Little Miss Matched. My girls would rather go barefoot than live without them.
However, even though I may love socks, there are some things about them I wish I could change. And actually, I think if these things could come true with perchance a Christmas miracle; then more of you would be sock fixated with me. Here’s a list of things I wish I could make better about socks for all of us (Please note- I had to invent a few new words to convey my full message below.):
Make them unlosable. Lost socks. Where are they? We all have the orphaned sock mate that we hang on to in hopes the lost sock will show up eventually. I’ve moved many times in my life and guess what…they still don’t show up. We can only hope there is an alternate universe like those created on TV in Eureka or portrayed on Fringe that is using them for good and hopefully to power their cars or produce enough food to feed the world.
Make them ‘unholeable’. Holes in the bottoms of your socks. I hate them! We all know the feeling when we are walking and it occurs to us that our sock is not whole any longer. You turn your foot slowly over and hope it’s not there, but there it is. And of course, it is your fave pair. Now what to do with the other sock? It just became orphaned. However, this time it loses its mate to the garbage and not that imagined alternate universe.
Make them un-stringy inside. Do you have any of those socks? They look so cute on the outside with a detailed pattern. But then you go to put your foot in and it’s a sea of strings crisscrossing the inside of the sock, like a thread forest that has grown amok. Even if you do decide to put them on, at some point you will realize during the day that one of your toes is intertwined with the thread-web and you will have to take them off. Now what do you do with them?
Make then ‘undingyable’. Bottom-line– do not buy a really good pair of white socks unless you have the additional time and care to keep them staying white. Be honest, if you see someone wearing dingy white socks that are now a shade of gray, do you not think that person is a little unkempt? This could be very untrue, they may have been washed many times and smell April fresh. (I’m talking about the socks, but the person could obviously be as well.) But of course, you would not want to check and see.
Ok, Ok, I’ll admit it. Even if all of these things changed about socks in the world for all of us, there would still be times that I would not recommend wearing socks. For example, these types of health reasons: to bed and with snow boots.
Why the first? I’m pretty sure if I wore socks to bed all night, I would self-combust by morning. And the latter because I have a trustworthy pair of heavy thermal snow boots; if I wore them with even the thinnest of socks, I’m pretty sure my foot would shrink a couple shoe sizes within a week. So, I do not wear socks in bed and usually not with snow boots. After all, I have a sock fascination grounded in realism, but not to the point of a psychiatric disorder.
Well, as usual, I’ve digressed from my original topic. So, if you get nothing else from all this nonsense, perhaps you just came up with a stocking stuffer gift idea for someone this Christmas, socks.
You’re welcome.