Puzzling socks, weird toys, and other perils of being generous

Sunday morning, kitchen. The husband making coffee. The wife sorting a stack of mail into two piles, pitch and pay. She mentions Northbrook has a program where anyone over age 55 gets $5 off a cab ride.

I make a face. Is that really intended for us? Are we not above that?

“Every five dollars counts!” she decrees, briskly moving to the next letter.

Do I want to give to Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism?

“No.” (The “Let-them-nuzzle-the-Tribune’s-ass-on-somebody-else’s-dime” is unvoiced.)

The Anti-Cruelty Society?

“Are we forgiving them for Vronsky?” I ask. A beloved cat we rescued from their clutches. “They wanted to kill him.”

“I give every year,” she says. Asking my opinion is, apparently, more symbolic than functional.

As I’m escaping upstairs she calls after me.

“And do that Santa, presents-for-kids program this year without grumbling.”

I freeze, wounded.

“I always grumble. It’s a holiday tradition.”

”No need to put on a curmudgeon act.”

“It’s not an act.”

“You’re sweetness itself ...”

No sane husband is going to argue with that. OK. Fine. When stacks of children’s letters appear in the lobby of the Sun-Times, I do something unprecedented: march over and grab the first letter off the pile. None of the usual careful sifting, trying to ID the tot requesting easy-to-find, inexpensive presents. I will bring joy to ... a 6-year-old boy.

His letter begins:

“Dear Santa. How are you? I am good! This year can I have fortnite toys? I need a lot of socks! My shoes have no socks. I also need a new sweater and some chanclas.”

Aka “slippers.”

“My shoes have no socks” energizes my wife. She’s practically humming it as we hit Target.

“He has ... no socks!” she cries, striding into the store, eyes aflame.

Have you ever tried to buy children’s socks? It’s worse than doing your taxes. The teacher noted our lad is a size 3 shoe. But socks’ numerical sizes seem unrelated to how big they are. Most would fit either a newborn or Lebron James. My wife and I spend 20 minutes trying to figure out socks, including consultation with a passing mother shepherding two kids.

How many pair do you think my wife bought? How many would you buy?

Twenty-one pairs of socks.

Maybe too many? I stammer.

“HE HAS NO SOCKS!!”

On to Fortnite. In years past, I at least had some idea what manner of toy we were buying. Star Wars, Minecraft. Whatever. There was a frame of reference. But Fortnite? No idea. The imagery is weird, nightmarish. The usual monster figurine with weapons, but paired with a guy in a pink bunny suit. A rainbow-dabbed pastel blue hobby horse. They make no sense. It’s like the toy line for a 1970s disco Halloween party.

“A ‘Love Ranger’?” I marvel, seizing a squat figurine. “I’m not getting him a ‘Love Ranger.’” We grab a set of four men, a bargain at $39.95.

The sweater is easy enough, though my wife has to toss in an extra sweatshirt.

“That’s not a sweater,” I observe.

“It has a rocket ship on it,” she explains, shooting me a glare that means: “He has no socks!”

I pick out a pair of slippers, brown with a fleece lining. Warm. Practical.

“He’s not an old man,” my wife says, countering with a pair of dragon foot slippers that I convince her no proper boy, needy or not, would be caught dead wearing.

I know I’m toying with the charity paradigm. But there’s a reason. I’m not doing it to minimize the seriousness of need everywhere in Chicago, nor to ignore the good fortune that permits me to perform my annual pantomime of a generous person. But to emphasize that if I, a self-absorbed, anxious and cheap man can spend an hour in Target to help a child enjoy a brighter Christmas, then you can too.

“Maybe I can expense this,” I muse, lugging the loot to the parking lot. “It’s an assignment. The paper should cover it.”

“You’re not expensing this,” my wife commands.

“Maybe next year then.”

Letters to Santa is an annual program of the Sun-Times Charity Trust. Each year, we match over 10,000 Chicagoland students with volunteers who purchase gifts and help make children’s holiday wishes come true. Learn more and sign up at suntimes.com/santa