Christmas Sock Quotes

One can never have enough socks," said Dumbledore. "Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.

Professor Dumbledore. Can I ask you something?" "Obviously, you've just done so," Dumbledore smiled. "You may ask me one more thing, however." "What do you see when you look in the mirror?" "I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks." Harry stared. "One can never have enough socks," said Dumbledore. "Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books." It was only when he was back in bed that it struck Harry that Dumbledore might not have been quite truthful. But then, he thought, as he shoved Scabbers off his pillow, it had been quite a personal question.

Like kids who only ever get socks for Christmas, but still believe with all their hearts in Santa.

Grief took a terrible toll. It was paid at every birthday, every holiday, each Christmas. It was paid when glimpsing the familiar handwriting, or a hat, or a balled-up sock. Or hearing a creak that could have been, should have been, a footstep. Grief took its toll each morning, each evening, every noon hour as those who were left behind struggled forward.

I was on a mission. I had to learn to comfort myself, to see what others saw in me and believe it. I needed to discover what the hell made me happy other than being in love. Mission impossible. When did figuring out what makes you happy become work? How had I let myself get to this point, where I had to learn me..? It was embarrassing. In my college psychology class, I had studied theories of adult development and learned that our twenties are for experimenting, exploring different jobs, and discovering what fulfills us. My professor warned against graduate school, asserting, "You're not fully formed yet. You don't know if it's what you really want to do with your life because you haven't tried enough things." Oh, no, not me.." And if you rush into something you're unsure about, you might awake midlife with a crisis on your hands," he had lectured it. Hi. Try waking up a whole lot sooner with a pre-thirty predicament worm dangling from your early bird mouth. "Well to begin," Phone Therapist responded, "you have to learn to take care of yourself. To nurture and comfort that little girl inside you, to realize you are quite capable of relying on yourself. I want you to try to remember what brought you comfort when you were younger." Bowls of cereal after school, coated in a pool of orange-blossom honey. Dragging my finger along the edge of a plate of mashed potatoes. I knew I should have thought "tea" or "bath," but I didn't. Did she want me to answer aloud? "Grilled cheese?" I said hesitantly. "Okay, good. What else?" I thought of marionette shows where I'd held my mother's hand and looked at her after a funny part to see if she was delighted, of brisket sandwiches with ketchup, like my dad ordered. Sliding barn doors, baskets of brown eggs, steamed windows, doubled socks, cupcake paper, and rolled sweater collars. Cookouts where the fathers handled the meat, licking wobbly batter off wire beaters, Christmas ornaments in their boxes, peanut butter on apple slices, the sounds and light beneath an overturned canoe, the pine needle path to the ocean near my mother's house, the crunch of snow beneath my red winter boots, bedtime stories. "My parents," I said. Damn. I felt like she made me say the secret word and just won extra points on the Psychology Game Network. It always comes down to our parents in therapy.

What do you see when you look in the mirror?” “I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks.” Harry stared. “One can never have enough socks,” said Dumbledore. “Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn’t get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.

Will you get any Christmas presents?’ she asked. ‘Maybe some socks,’ Erlendur said. ‘Hopefully

He's got one leg hooked up over Lindsay's shoulder, one braced against the dashboard. He's still got his socks on, red with a little Christmas tree on each ankle. Well sexy.

The wind and the grass and something in the sky, sun, or moon, shining on our backs as we run: They are gifts that humans toss away like socks on Christmas morning, because we see them every day and don't think of them as gifts anymore. But new socks are always better than old socks. And the wind and grass and sky, I think, are better seen with new eyes than jaded ones. I hope my eyes will never grow old.

I was trying to decide what to give you for Christmas.” Slowly, Kat slipped closer. “Oh yeah?” “Yeah. I was thinking a jet. That way you could stop borrowing mine.” “Jets are nice,” Kat said. “I also like candy. And I need socks.” “Okay.” Hale gave her The Smile again “Jets. Candy. Socks. I’ll make a note.

And somehow Hallie thrived anyway--the blossom of our family, like one of those miraculous fruit trees that taps into an invisible vein of nurture and bears radiant bushels of plums while the trees around it merely go on living. In Grace, in the old days, when people found one of those in their orchard they called it the semilla besada--the seed that got kissed. Sometimes you'd run across one that people had come to, and returned to, in hopes of a blessing. The branches would be festooned like a Christmas tree of family tokens: a baby sock, a pair of broken reading glasses, the window envelope of a pension check.

Nothing had come easy to him. School, sports, or girls... it seemed to Oswald that everyone else had come into this world with a set of instructions but him. From the beginning he had always felt like a pair of white socks and brown shoes in a roomful of tuxedos. He had never really gotten a break in life, and now it was all over.

Clara knew that grief took a terrible toll. It was paid at every birthday, every holiday, each Christmas. It was paid when glimpsing the familiar handwriting, or a hat, or a balled-up sock. Or hearing a creak that could have been, should have been, a footstep. Grief took its toll each morning, each evening, every noon hour as those who were left behind struggled forward.

Sir — Professor Dumbledore? Can I ask you something?” “Obviously, you’ve just done so,” Dumbledore smiled. “You may ask me one more thing, however.” “What do you see when you look in the mirror?” “I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks.” Harry stared. “One can never have enough socks,” said Dumbledore. “Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn’t get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.

It'll be like when your parents give you the biggest present at Christmas but you unwrap it and there's a smaller present inside and that keeps happening until you have a mountain o wrapping paper, some new socks, and a lot of unresolved anger.

Seriously, isn’t there enough holiday cheer around here? You all don’t have to invade my office.” I glared at my coworkers, decked out in their fancy Christmas finery, complete with Santa hats and jingly socks. I should have been expecting this—it was a week before Christmas. -- Erica

I got back from the University late in the afternoon, had a quick swim, ate my dinner, and bolted off to the Stanton house to see Adam. I saw him sitting out on the galley reading a book (Gibbon, I remember) in the long twilight. And I saw Anne. I was sitting in the swing with Adam, when she came out the door. I looked at her and knew that it had been a thousand years since I had last seen her back at Christmas when she had been back at the Landing on vacation from Miss Pound's School. She certainly was not now a little girl wearing round-toed, black patent-leather, flat-heeled slippers held on by a one-button strap and white socks held up by a dab of soap. She was wearing a white linen dress, cut very straight, and the straightness of the cut and the stiffness of the linen did nothing in the world but suggest by a kind of teasing paradox the curves and softnesses sheathed by the cloth. She had her hair in a knot on the nape of her neck, and a little white ribbon around her head, and she was smiling at me with a smile which I had known all my life but which was entirely new, and saying, 'Hello, Jack,' while I held her strong narrow hand in mine and knew that summer had come.

I’m flattered, Vince. You and Jak seemed to have spent a lot of time talking about me.” “Not you, housework brat, your meal ticket boyfriends. I reckon if I try hard enough, I can win over Dick, and according to Jak, winning over Dick is the key to winning over Shane. That’s how you wheedled your way in. Dick’s a nice guy, but Shane is,” he gave a low whistle, “something special. I like powerful men.” I flinched as he reached out and patted me condescendingly on the upper arm. “Don’t worry though. I won’t let them kick you out of the house straight away. I quite fancy having an epileptic sock washer at my beck and call for a while.

I’ve never run this far before," he said at one point. "Or this fast for so long. It’s better than sticking your head out a car window, that’s for sure." My theory is that Oberon might be a master of Tao. He always sees what we filter out. The wind and the grass and something in the sky, sun or moon, shining on our backs as we run: They are gifts that humans toss away like socks on Christmas morning, because we see them every day and don’t think of them as gifts anymore. But new socks are always better than old socks. And the wind and grass and sky, I think, are better seen with new eyes than jaded ones. I hope my eyes will never grow old.

We often fail to consider accurate information that could potentially provide insight into another person's point of view (such as his or her facial expressions) but happily consider inaccurate information (such s broad stereotypes or gossip). For example, when evaluating preferences of people we perceive as similar to us, we tend to use ourselves as reference points. But when we perceive others as less similar, we are more likely to resort to stereotypes to assess their preferences. Once we consider how this dynamic might play out in gift-giving scenarios, it becomes clear why Grandpa ended up with twenty-three pairs of woolen socks for Christmas but without the Kindle he'd been hinting at since Thanksgiving.

My dad always told me that there are three types of humans on this planet. First there’s the Sheep. The everyday types who live in denial—spoon-fed by the morning news, chewed up by another monotonous workday, and spit back out across the urban streets of the world like a mouthful of funky meatloaf that’s been rotting in the back of the fridge. Basically, the Sheep are the defenseless majority who are completely unwilling to acknowledge the inevitability of real danger, and trust the system to take care of them. Next you’ve got your Wolves. The bad guys who abide by no societal laws whatsoever but are good at pretending when it suits them. These are the thieves, murderers, rapists, and politicians, who feed on the Sheep until they’re thrown in prison, or better yet, belly up in a landfill alongside sheaves of your grandma’s itchy hand-knit Christmas socks. The ones you ritualistically blow up every year with an M80. And lastly, you have people like us. The McCrackens. The Herders of the world. Sure, our kind may look a lot like Wolves—large fangs, sharp claws, and the capacity for violence—but what sets us apart from the rest is that we represent the balance between the two. We can navigate the flock freely, with the ability to protect or disown as we see fit. My dad says that we’re the select few with the power of choice, and when real danger arises, we’ll be the ones who survive—and not just because we own a 357 Magnum, three glock G19’s, and a Mossberg pump-action shotgun, but because we’ve been prepping, in every possible badass way, since as long as I can remember, for the inevitable collapse of society as we know it.

Our neighbors would rise early and visit the malls, snatching up gift-wrapped Dustbusters and the pom-pommed socks used to protect the heads of golf clubs. Christmas would arrive and we, the people of this country, would gather around identical trees, voicing our pleasure with worn clichés. Turkeys would roast to a hard, shellacked finish. Hams would be crosshatched with x’s and glazed with fruit — and it was fine by me. Were I to receive a riding vacuum cleaner or even a wizened proboscis monkey, it wouldn’t please me half as much as knowing we were the only family in the neighborhood with a prostitute in our kitchen. From this moment on, the phrase “ho, ho, ho” would take on a whole different meaning; and I, along with the rest of my family, could appreciate it in our own clannish way. It suddenly occurred to me. Just like that.

At the sound of his voice, down went the arm, and Mrs. Podgers saw a boy of nine or ten, arrayed in a flannel garment that evidently belonged to Mr. ’Rusalem; for though none too long, it was immensely broad, and the voluminous sleeves were pinned up, showing a pair of wasted arms, chapped with cold and mottled with bruises. A large blue sock still covered one foot. The other was bound up as if hurt. A tall cotton nightcap, garnished with a red tassel, looked like a big extinguisher on a small candle; and from under it, a pair of dark, hollow eyes glanced sharply with a shrewd, suspicious look that made the little face more pathetic than the marks of suffering, neglect, and abuse, which told the child’s story without words. As if quite reassured by ’Rusalem’s presence, the boy shuffled out of his corner, saying coolly, as he prepared to climb into his nest again:

Maggie felt an unexpected pang. She had thought beforehand chiefly at her own deliverance from her teasing hair and teasing remarks about it, and something also of the triumph she should have over her mother and her aunts by this very decided course of action; she didn't want her hair to look pretty,–that was out of the question,–she only wanted people to think her a clever little girl, and not to find fault with her. But now, when Tom began to laugh at her, and say she was like an idiot, the affair had quite a new aspect. She looked in the glass, and still Tom laughed and clapped his hands, and Maggie's cheeks began to pale, and her lips to tremble a little. "Oh, Maggie, you'll have to go down to dinner directly," said Tom. "Oh, my!" ...But Maggie, as she stood crying before the glass, felt it impossible that she should go down to dinner and endure the severe eyes and severe words of her aunts, while Tom and Lucy, and Martha, who waited at table, and perhaps her father and her uncles, would laugh at her; for if Tom had laughed at her, of course every one else would; and if she had only let her hair alone, she could have sat with Tom and Lucy, and had the apricot pudding and the custard! What could she do but sob? She sat as helpless and despairing among her black locks as Ajax among the slaughtered sheep. Very trivial, perhaps, this anguish seems to weather-worn mortals who have to think of Christmas bills, dead loves, and broken friendships; but it was not less bitter to Maggie–perhaps it was even more bitter–than what we are fond of calling antithetically the real troubles of mature life. "Ah, my child, you will have real troubles to fret about by and by," is the consolation we have almost all of us had administered to us in our childhood, and have repeated to other children since we have been grown up. We have all of us sobbed so piteously, standing with tiny bare legs above our little socks, when we lost sight of our mother or nurse in some strange place; but we can no longer recall the poignancy of that moment and weep over it, as we do over the remembered sufferings of five or ten years ago. Every one of those keen moments has left its trace, and lives in us still, but such traces have blent themselves irrecoverably with the firmer texture of our youth and manhood; and so it comes that we can look on at the troubles of our children with a smiling disbelief in the reality of their pain. Is there any one who can recover the experience of his childhood, not merely with a memory of what he did and what happened to him, of what he liked and disliked when he was in frock and trousers, but with an intimate penetration, a revived consciousness of what he felt then, when it was so long from one Midsummer to another; what he felt when his school fellows shut him out of their game because he would pitch the ball wrong out of mere wilfulness; or on a rainy day in the holidays, when he didn't know how to amuse himself, and fell from idleness into mischief, from mischief into defiance, and from defiance into sulkiness; or when his mother absolutely refused to let him have a tailed coat that "half," although every other boy of his age had gone into tails already? Surely if we could recall that early bitterness, and the dim guesses, the strangely perspectiveless conception of life, that gave the bitterness its intensity, we should not pooh-pooh the griefs of our children.

You look a bit fatigued, Sophie.” St. Just studied her with a brooding frown, all hint of teasing gone. His brows knit further as his gaze went to the hearth. “Is that a pair of my favorite socks set out to dry? They’re a bit large for you, aren’t they?” Westhaven emerged from the back hallway, a small box in his hand. “Somebody has decimated my stash of marzipan. If His Grace has given up crème cakes for German chocolate, I’ll be naming my seconds.” Valentine returned from the corridor. “Somebody left my favorite mug in the linen closet. I thought you favored more delicate crockery, Sophie.” In the ensuing moment of silence, Sophie was casting around desperately for plausible reasons why all this evidence of Vim’s presence in the house was yet on hand, when the back door opened and slammed shut. “Sophie, love! I’m back. Come here and let me kiss you senseless, and then, by God, we’re going to talk.” Oh dear. Oh, good heavens. Vim emerged from the darkness looking weary, handsome, and very pleased—until his gaze traveled to each of the three men glowering at him. “Who the hell are you?” Westhaven’s voice was soft, but he did not sound sensible in the least. “And what makes you think you’re going to be kissing my sister?” St. Just added, hands on his hips. “And what on earth could you have to speak with Lady Sophia about?” Valentine asked, crossing his arms.

My internal dialogue went something like this: leave it open!… but that would be strange if someone walks by… who cares? I care! Why do I care? Just close it! You can’t close it; you’re in your underwear!! and if the door is closed you might… do… something… Here is the situation: I’m in my underwear in my room with Quinn and my alcohol laden inhibitions are low, low, low. It’s like closing yourself up in a Godiva chocolate shop, of course you’re going to sample something… Don’t sample anything!! Don’t even smell anything!! If you smell it you’ll want to try it. Don’t smell him anymore. No. More. Smelling. I hope he doesn’t see the empty bottle of wine… Put some clothes on. Is it weird if I dress in front of him? I want some chocolate. Ah! Clothes!! Finally the door closed even though I hadn’t made a conscious decision to do so. I took a steadying breath then turned and followed, trailing some distance behind him and crossing to the opposite side of the room from where he was currently standing. I spotted my workout shirt on the bed and attempted to surreptitiously put it on. Quinn’s back was to me and he seemed to be meandering around the space; he didn’t appear to be in any hurry. He paused for a short moment next to my laptop and stared at the screen. He looked lost and a little vulnerable. Smash, smash, smash I took this opportunity to rapidly pull on some sweatpants and a sweatshirt from my suitcase. The sweatshirt was on backwards, with the little ‘V’ in the back and the tag in the front, but I ignored it and grabbed my jacket from the closet behind me and soundlessly slipped it on too. He walked to the window and surveyed the view as I hurriedly pushed my feet into socks and hand knit slippers, given to me by Elizabeth last Christmas. I was a tornado of frenzied activity, indiscriminately and quietly pulling on clothes. I may have been overcompensating for my earlier state of undress. However, it wasn’t until he, with leisurely languid movements, turned toward me that I finally stopped dressing; my hands froze on my head as I pulled on a white cabled hat, another hand knit gift from Elizabeth. Quinn sighed, “I need to talk to you about your sist-” but

Then I’ll sing, though that will likely have the child holding his ears and you running from the room.” This, incongruously, had her lips quirking up. “My father isn’t very musical. You hold the baby, I’ll sing.” She took the rocking chair by the hearth. Vim settled the child in his arms and started blowing out candles as he paced the room. “He shall feed his flock, like a shepherd…” More Handel, the lilting, lyrical contralto portion of the aria, a sweet, comforting melody if ever one had been written. And the baby was comforted, sighing in Vim’s arms and going still. Not deathly still, just exhausted still. Sophie sang on, her voice unbearably lovely. “And He shall gather the lambs in his arm… and gently lead those that are with young.” Vim liked music, he enjoyed it a great deal in fact—he just wasn’t any good at making it. Sophie was damned good. She had superb control, managing to sing quietly even as she shifted to the soprano verse, her voice lifting gently into the higher register. By the second time through, Vim’s eyes were heavy and his steps lagging. “He’s asleep,” he whispered as the last notes died away. “And my God, you can sing, Sophie Windham.” “I had good teachers.” She’d sung some of the tension and worry out too, if her more peaceful expression was any guide. “If you want to go back to your room, I can take him now.” He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to leave her alone with the fussy baby; he didn’t want to go back to his big, cold bed down the dark, cold hallway. “Go to bed, Sophie. I’ll stay for a while.” She frowned then went to the window and parted the curtain slightly. “I think it’s stopped snowing, but there is such a wind it’s hard to tell.” He didn’t dare join her at the window for fear a chilly draft might wake the child. “Come away from there, Sophie, and why haven’t you any socks or slippers on your feet?” She glanced down at her bare feet and wiggled long, elegant toes. “I forgot. Kit started crying, and I was out of bed before I quite woke up.” They shared a look, one likely common to parents of infants the world over. “My Lord Baby has a loyal and devoted court,” Vim said. “Get into bed before your toes freeze off.” She gave him a particularly unreadable perusal but climbed into her bed and did not draw the curtains. “Vim?” “Hmm?” He took the rocker, the lyrical triple meter of the aria still in his head. “Thank you.” He

At a key point in the letter James told his readers: “You do not have because you do not ask God” (4:2). Prayer makes a difference. Your prayer makes a difference. “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” (5:16). One of the most successful advertising campaigns of recent years came from a regional airline in the US during the run-up to Christmas. They set up a “virtual Santa” in the departure lounge of a domestic flight. Passengers would scan their boarding pass, activating a screen featuring Santa (located somewhere else and with access to their flight details), who would then ask them what they wanted for Christmas before sending them on their way. Unbeknownst to the passengers, employees from the airline then went out to local malls to purchase and wrap the very things the passengers had asked for—everything from new socks to a widescreen TV. When the passengers arrived at their destination, their gifts arrived along with their luggage at the baggage belt. Many stood in disbelief when they realised what had happened. Needless to say, the video recording their reactions went viral, providing the airline with way more publicity and goodwill than a standard commercial would have generated. But after the warm glow from watching it subsided, I had one thought in my mind: The guy who only asked for socks must be kicking himself. Once he’d realised what had happened, surrounded by people with expensive cameras and tablets, he must have felt a little foolish clutching a pair of socks. If only he had known. If only he had asked. James does not want us to make the same mistake. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. It is real. Things actually happen. God answers. How foolish we are not to pray far more than we do. How foolish, at the end of the day, aware of all that we could have had, to be left clutching the equivalent of a pair of socks that we never even realised we would get. Not every Christian can be a great theologian, preacher, missionary or evangelist. But every Christian can be a great and effective pray-er.

He's got a warm baritone that tempts you to lean in, until the moment your brain catches up with your eardrums and reminds you that he's awful and you'd give anything to make him stop talking. With a cookie or a sock or that ball gag you looked up online specifically for your make-him-shut-up fantasies.

Clara knew that grief took a terrible toll. It was paid at every birthday, every holiday, each Christmas. It was paid when glimpsing the familiar handwriting, or a hat, or a balled-up sock. Or hearing a creak that could have been, should have been, a footstep. Grief took its toll each morning, each evening, every noon hour as those who were left behind struggled forward. Clara wasn’t sure

Mr. Beckett is here, Miss Westforth is here, and I am certain sparks will fly between them. That is, once we put them together.” Philbert glanced over her shoulder into the ballroom beyond. “I fear there is little we need to do for this couple.” She followed his gaze to where she could see Miss Susannah Westforth, the most sought after young lady of the past Season, surrounded by a sea of young men, giving Sebastian Beckett her hand to bow over. Startled, he did so. Then, a waltz began, and before the first three notes had been played, Susannah’s partner had stepped forward to claim her and lead her to the floor. The look on Mr. Beckett’s face fluctuated between completely shocked and utterly murderous. “Well, well,” she murmured. “That knocked his socks off. It will be a few hours yet before she has him smiling. Although, to hear Julia tell it, a little torture might be in that boy’s best interest.” “Hours of torture?” Philbert asked, shaking his now silver head. Lucy could remember when it had been a deep chocolate, thick and wavy. Of course, it was still thick, still waved. She raised her hand to her own light hair. Silver now too, she knew. But hopefully, still stylish. “Yes.” Lucy nodded. “Why, do you think that too much?” “It’s not for me to say, my lady.” The corner of his mouth went up. “Some men will break under hours of torture, wanting for a woman. Some men endure decades.” Something

Well, well,” she murmured. “That knocked his socks off. It will be a few hours yet before she has him smiling. Although, to hear Julia tell it, a little torture might be in that boy’s best interest.” “Hours of torture?” Philbert asked, shaking his now silver head. Lucy could remember when it had been a deep chocolate, thick and wavy. Of course, it was still thick, still waved. She raised her hand to her own light hair. Silver now too, she knew. But hopefully, still stylish. “Yes.” Lucy nodded. “Why, do you think that too much?” “It’s not for me to say, my lady.” The corner of his mouth went up. “Some men will break under hours of torture, wanting for a woman. Some men endure decades.” Something zipped through Lucy’s heart. Something uncomfortable, something wonderful. And when her eyes met his… something that made her flush all over again.

Harley Diekerhoff looked up from peeling potatoes to glance out the kitchen window. It was still snowing... even harder than it had been this morning. So much white, it dazzled. Hands still, breath catching, she watched the thick, white flakes blow past the ranch house at a dizzying pace, enthralled by the flurry of the lacy snowflakes. So beautiful. Magical A mysterious silent ballet in all white, the snow swirling, twirling just like it did in her favorite scene from the Nutcracker—the one with the Snow Queen and her breathtaking corps in their white tutus with their precision and speed—and then that dazzling snow at the end, the delicate flakes powdering the stage. Harley’s chest ached. She gripped the peeler more tightly, and focused on her breathing. She didn’t want to remember. She wasn’t going to remember. Wasn’t going to go there, not now, not today. Not when she had six hungry men to feed in a little over two hours. She picked up a potato, started peeling. She’d come to Montana to work. She’d taken the temporary job at Copper Mountain Ranch to get some distance from her family this Christmas, and working on the Paradise Valley cattle ranch would give her new memories. Like the snow piling up outside the window. She’d never lived in a place that snowed like this. Where she came from in Central California, they didn’t have snow, they had fog. Thick soupy Tule fog that blanketed the entire valley, socking in airports, making driving nearly impossible. And on the nights when the fog lifted and temperatures dropped beneath the cold clear sky, the citrus growers rushed to light smudge pots to protect their valuable, vulnerable orange crops. Her family didn’t grow oranges. Her family were Dutch dairy people. Harley had been raised on a big dairy farm in Visalia, and she’d marry a dairyman in college, and they’d had their own dairy, too. But that’s the part she needed to forget. That’s why she’d come to Montana, with its jagged mountains and rugged river valleys and long cold winters. She’d arrived here the Sunday following Thanksgiving and would work through mid-January, when Brock Sheenan’s housekeeper returned from a personal leave of absence. In January, Harley would either return to California or look for another job in Crawford County. Harley was tempted to stay, as the Bozeman employment agency assured her they’d have no problem finding her a permanent position if she wanted one.

Every morning Papa brought in another pile of firewood and vines from the apple tree. Mama said they should keep busy knitting Papa’s Christmas presents. Josie finished Papa’s scarf and made one for Mama too. Katrina worked on Mama’s pincushion, but she just couldn’t concentrate on knitting Papa’s socks while he sawed and hacked away at the apple tree. She had ripped out the heel and started over so many times that she had all but ruined the yarn from Mrs. Wooly. “Well, I’ll miss the old apple tree,” said Mama, “but it will keep us warm this long winter.” “Yes, I’m thankful for the firewood,” said Papa. How could he be thankful, thought Katrina. Didn’t he know that he was chopping up her studio? Didn’t he know he was ruining her drawing board? Didn’t he know she couldn’t draw unless she were in the apple tree?

December, in my memory, is white as Lapland, though there were no reindeer. But there were cats. Patient, cold and callous, our hands wrapped in socks, we waited to snowball the cats. Sleek and long as jaguars and horrible-whiskered, spitting and snarling, they would slink and sidle over the white back-garden walls, and the lynx-eyed hunters, Jim and I, fur-capped and moccasined trappers from Hudson Bay, off Mumbles Road, would hurl our deadly snowballs at the green of their eyes.

What do you see when you look in the Mirror?' 'I? I see myself holding a pair of thick woollen socks.' Harry stared. 'One can never have enough socks,' said Dumbledore. 'Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.

Heart. Melt. He wore dorky socks because they were a gift from his mother.

I made a pair of socks for ya out of the big fella I skinned. He's got some nice irezumi tattoo patterns that you liked. Merry Christmas, pudding!

In our family, the presents we gave one another were almost always homemade. I thought that was the definition of a gift: something you made for someone else. We made all our Christmas gifts: piggy banks from old Clorox bottles, hot pads from broken clothespins, and puppets from retired socks. My mother says it was because we had no money for store-bought presents. It didn’t seem like a hardship to me; it was something special.

Socks!” Skylar’s displeased shout broke their moment. They both smiled at the teenage growl. “Who gets socks on Christmas?” “You’ll be sad when you stop getting those,” Nick called back.

We define the Church as a network of relationships acting as a leaven to transform the world. These relationships are based on sharing the gifts of Christ. If you give a gift, if you receive a gift, a relationship is established. If your grandmother knits socks for you for Christmas and you refuse them, you break the relationship with your grandmother. But acceptance of the gift creates a real relationship which is not a merely a metaphor or work of the imagination.

Why did you take it out of the window and hang up some old socks instead?” Peter asked. Uncle Jim laughed. “The stockings are for Christmas presents.” “Who’d want socks for Christmas?” Peter asked. “Not as a present! They hold presents. You know, lemon drops for your sisters…chocolates for your mother…” Jim said. Peter gave Jim a funny smile. “I don’t know if I’d want lemon drops after they’d been in one of my socks.

Love was what happened after the first flush of lust had worn off and you found out they hated doing the dishes and never put their socks in the laundry basket, and yet you still wanted to be with them. Love was looking after them when they thought they were dying from a measly cold, and putting up with their snoring, and letting them watch the rugby although there was a show you were missing on the other side. Wasn’t it?

On my way out of the building, I passed the Men’s Residence Christmas Dinner. If you’ve ever witnessed a school bus accident or a dog trying to nudge its dead owner back to life, then the sight of this dinner probably wouldn’t affect you. But for me, it was easily the third-saddest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. The residents were at a long table in the basement, and Mr. Mkvcrkvckz was wearing a Santa hat with his dingy suit. There had been some kind of turkey dinner, because the place smelled like gravy, and they were just opening their presents. A tall goony kid named Timmy held up a pair of tube socks. There were tube socks for Mr. Engler. Opening tube socks over here, boss! They all got tube socks. It wasn’t the tube socks that got me. It wasn’t knowing that these guys would get nothing else for Christmas. It was the thought of Mr. Mvzkrskchs at the dollar store buying forty pairs of tube socks that set me weeping all the way home. This was compounded by the fact that Whitney Houston’s cover of “I Will Always Love You” was constantly on my FM Walkman radio around that time. I think that made me cry because I associated it with absolutely no one. After a visit to civilization with my family, I found the front desk harder to take.