Dear Diary,

Anyone who has seen the movie “Christmas Story” will remember the scene where the two boys each open a present and discover socks. Naturally, they look at each other and throw the socks over their shoulders. What self-respecting child wants socks (or any type of clothing for that matter) as a Christmas present? It’s a waste of a perfectly good gift!

Besides, everyone knows that Santa and his elves make toys and other playthings. Whoever heard of Santa making socks or underwear? He has a toy shop, not a clothing factory. No child would dream of traveling to the North Pole to visit Santa’s “Sock Shop”. Santa is such a “jolly old elf” to quote Clement Moore because he FILLS stockings, not makes them.

So why do parents insist upon buying clothes as Christmas presents for their children? Have they forgotten about fun? Do they buy socks because they all supposedly “walked six miles to school each day, in the snow, without shoes?" Are they trying to prevent their children from also suffering the torment of "freezing feet?"

The same questions can be asked regarding birthday presents. When we were children and invited to a birthday party, our mother would inevitably buy underwear for us to give to the other child. Other presents were toys and games (you know, fun stuff). When they were opened, everyone was excited. Comments such as, “Oh, that’s great!” or “I wish I had one of those.” were common. Then the birthday boy or girl would come to our present. They’d start tearing off the wrapping paper and we’d start looking for a very, very deep and dark hole. “Gee,....thanks.” and the underwear was quickly pushed aside. No one wanted “one of those.” Eventually people either started avoiding our presents or opening them first to get them out of the way and quickly get to the “good stuff.” It was so embarrassing.

We kept trying to get Mom to buy something fun, something a child would like. But, she’d always buy underwear because it was "a practical present--everyone can use underwear." We’d go with her to the department store and try our best to steer her towards the toys. It was always the same scenario--toys on the left, underwear on the right, and us pleading. “Mom go left...no, no left....Mom, no Mom left.....Mom....oh man, she turned right! Aw, Mom... Remember the “Peanuts” comic strip where Snoopy always thought that the chocolate chip cookies were calling him? Well, the underwear aisle must have been calling our mother. “Over here, over here.” Yeah, right.

We were afraid that people would stop inviting us to their parties. “Don’t ask them to come. you’ll get underwear.” Come to think of it, we did start receiving fewer invitations.