Christmas Socks

Christmas Socks
Chuck Martin

This is a true story about Christmas socks.

I’m amazed at the presents and toys under Christmas trees these days. When I was growing up in the fifties middle class, of which my family was on the lower edge, presents were more sparing. Each August, right before school started, I’d receive two pair of jeans, one shirt, socks and a pair of shoes that were to last the year. At Christmas I received the same, except for shoes, and one, maybe two toys. I looked forward to Christmas; by that time I’d worn out the jeans, and the elbows had been patched on the shirt. I thought I was truly poor until one day my little Mexican friend came over, looked at my four shirts hanging in the closet, and stated, “Wow! You sure got a lot of clothes.”

Kids have walkie-talkies today; we had two tin cans tied to a long piece of string. They have real cool looking pistols, ray guns, and Star War saber lights. We had a long cottonwood tree branch, split at the shoulder end, for a rifle. Dads would cut out wooden guns with a nail tacked on the top of the end of the barrel. A large rubber band was stretched from the nail to a clothes pen attached to the front of the wood grip. It made a dandy shooter.

They have miniature electric cars today that make sounds like a real engine. We attached playing cards with clothes pens to the spokes of our bikes. BRRRRRRRRRRR down the rod we’d go. Now there’s DVD games that are so life like the kids think it’s reality. There’s no imagination to that. Heck, we thought up our own adventures. There was no end of who we could be. One minute Robin Hood; the next Roy or Gene.

Though, there were times we received some pretty weird stuff for Christmas, like a piece of clay, made by your sister in class, that didn’t resemble anything imaginable. Just a big lump of…clay. We were taught to be grateful for whatever we received and I thanked her.

Now about those Christmas socks. I was fourteen when I received the socks. We had a lot of relatives coming over Christmas morning and my mother had informed them I needed socks. I got up that morning anticipating my receiving a new shirt and jeans, and maybe some kind of toy. We took turns opening presents, my sister, then, me and then grownups. My first present, two pairs of, ugh, red and brown, argyle socks. “Thanks,“ I said, “just what I needed. I opened my second present, two pair of knee high socks. Knee high’s were for old men! “Ah, another pair,” I said, “Thank you…appreciate it.” On and on it went, each contained a pair or two, or three, of socks until I sat there surrounded by 17 pairs of multi colored foot warmers. “Boy, this is great I won’t have to buy socks the whole year,” I said and thought maybe for the next ten years. I did have one more present from my Uncle Bus. It was a black eight ball filled with ink. You asked it a question and when turned over an answer would rise to the surface.

Later that day, when I had my mother alone, I complained, “Seventeen pairs of socks and an eight ball. Everyone else got something useful.”

“Well,” she replied, “I told everyone you needed socks, and everyone gave you socks. Sometimes you get what you ask for. Next year I’ll say you need shirts, maybe you’ll get seventeen shirts. But, before you trip over that pout lip, remember, it’s not the getting, it’s the giving, and mainly the celebration of our Christ Child.

I wish more people today had my mom’s view of Christmas.