I didn't grow up in a Christmas stocking kind of household. At least, not at first. I was a spoiled brat, but my parents never got into stuffing stockings. We had them only for decorative purposes, and it drove me fucking crazy. Since my family opens gifts at midnight after an eighty course meal on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day itself was never too important to me. In some ways, it was actually quite depressing -- we had nothing to do and more or less atrophied until New Year's Eve. I'd usually spend Christmas morning at my best friend's house across the street -- his family opened their shit in the morning, and every year, I'd watch my buddy and his two brothers have multiple orgasms while sorting through their stocking loot. Stocking loot?! What was this?! Where was mine?!I hated having a reason to cry on Christmas morning.
Eventually, I persuaded my parents to make use of our red socks. Never really wanted anything big outta the arrangement -- just some Crayola crayons, miniature Milton Bradley games, stickers, yadda yadda. There's just something inherently cool about plucking mystery gifts out of a big furry sock. If Christmas is Christ's big birthday bash, the stocking is the loot bag you get before the drive home. Sometimes, there's Chapstick inside.
One of the more notable stuffers? Silly Putty, man. Now out in a holiday two-pack, containing putties of both the red and green varieties. Neat, but nothing beats the original flesh color, capable of lifting Jeffy right outta The Family Circus. Oh well -- they're still bouncy, with the same weird odor that makes Silly Putty in all of its many incarnations impossible to put down. Nobody thinks to ask for two Silly Putty eggs for one occasion, but lemma tell ya, it's terrific. No matter how much you screw up one of the mounds -- no matter how much carpet hair, Windex, spit or sand you manage to get on it, there's still another waiting to be dismantled. This is what Christmas is all about.
Random Putty Facts: Silly Putty been around since the 50s, and its original retail price of a buck hasn't appreciated much in over half of a century -- most stores sell Silly Putty for less than two dollars "an egg" these days. It's been available with glitter enhancements, in fluorescent shades and with metallic hues. The bouncy wonderful gunk existed without a purpose for quite some time before becoming a toy. Initially, researchers tried to develop a scientific use for it. Never happened, but many years after its debut as a plaything, astronauts found a new use for Silly Putty: as an adhesive to hold down their doodads in zero gravity environments. Perhaps I should've done this in bullet point form.
PS: No, I couldn't resist mashing 'em together to see what new mutant color would surface. I'm just like you.
Posted by Matt on 11/28/2004. E-mail me!
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Stocking stuffers were always a big deal in my family, maybe because we opened presents on Christmas morning. We used to open one present on Christmas Eve, but now that we’re all older, we just wait for the big day. It also helps that our stockings are hand-made by my mother, personalized with something we like about the holidays (I, for instance, have a snowman dancing in felt "snow"), not just some red felt sock. Though older, we still honor the stocking tradition. Mom buys us ornaments, and we all always need little things, like computer disks, Post-It notes, and paperback books.