Socks suck for Hanukkah

By Jonathan Jacobbson

On my first Hanukkah, I received a pair of socks. My parents watched with loving eyes as I unraveled the wrapping paper to find my highly functional and certainly practical gift.

“C’mon,” I’m sure they thought. “Everyone needs socks.”

But I did not need socks then, and I don’t need socks now, although I continue to receive them every holiday. In fact, I don’t think that there has ever been a time in my life where I’ve ever had fewer than 10 pairs of socks. Socks are a staple on my parents’ annual list of things they think I need and, therefore, a good indicator of how my life has functioned thus far.

I nearly always get the things I need, but almost never the things I want, which is something I suppose I should be thankful for.

The Rolling Stones understand my problem and apparently sympathize. After all, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is one of their most popular, if not most truthful, songs.

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So when I go to open my gifts Dec. 15, the first of Hanukkah’s “eight crazy nights,” I’m not going to expect Playstation 3 or the new Beck album. I know that it will much more likely be a Spanish-English dictionary or a sweater with a dreidel on it.

I do love dictionaries and dreidels, but they are probably the least exciting gifts of all time. But perhaps I’ll do what I’ve always done: Go over to a friend’s house and use the things I’ll never have.