Fuzzy Socks for Christmas

One of my favorite memories is when I was about 14 years old or so. My mom and I were out on our patio talking to the neighbor lady who lived behind us. She looked down at our feet and then up at us and said, “There must have been a sale on socks”. We didn’t know what she was talking about. Simultaneously we looked down at our feet and realized that we each had on two different colored “fuzzy” socks. That means there were four different colored socks. They were little fuzzy socks that we wore as slippers around the house, and we never seemed to be able to keep pairs together.

It was a Christmas tradition that we got new ones in our stockings each year to add to our collection. That year for Christmas, my mom was so excited to have me open my new pair of “fuzzies”, as we called them. She had me open the plastic bag they were in and take them out. I can still remember the shock of surprise when I realized they were two different colors. One pair, two different colors. My mom had very carefully slit the packages open, switched the colors, then inconspicuously taped the bag closed. Christmas gifts were pretty lean when I was growing up and this clever and thoughtful gesture wasn’t the kind of thing my mom did often so it remains an extra special memory to me.