The lesson of socks: why Harry Potter can help us be better friends.

Around this time of year, I get deluged by "Holiday gift guides." This is no less true of Harry Potter, and there is nothing wrong with finding something wizarding to bring joy to a fan's life. But here is a story of the best running joke in my family.

"People will insist on giving me books."

I'm a bookworm. It's no secret that I have shelves full of biographies, histories, fantasies, etc. and a Kindle app full of more of the same. I wouldn't be writing about Harry Potter, The Hobbit, etc. if I weren't avidly into reading. But when I first read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, I laughed at Dumbledore's vision of the deepest desire because I absolutely understood where he was coming from.

For a few years, family re-evaluated what they should give me and I got, strangely enough a LOT of scarves. I still have most of them, but while it was ncie to get something new, it was still sort of exasperating.

And then my sister asked me about my Christmas wish list.. I told her about a book I'd recently read in which a wise old man wished people would put the books back on the store shelves and give him "a pair of thick, woolen socks." I recounted his reasons why and said that I sometimes just needed the equivalent of woolen socks.

Every year since then,, my sister has given me socks for Christmas. They can be colorful and funny or simple and sturdy. The thing I appreciate isn't necessarily the socks, though I really do like having warm feet She looked to what I needed beyond a first instinct and that's what is valuable to me. This is the same sister who has put me in charge of her kids' pop culture education and that means that we have an event for the first time I show them Star Wars and we talk about what parts of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone they worry about seeing for the first time.

I feel like I make a real contribution to the people I love when I do these things and my sister gets that I needed that in my life. And it all started with her deciding to address my need for thick, woolen socks. I have this head canon that Dobby and Dumbledore similarly gave each other socks for Christmas and that there was a deeper meaning to that exchange between friends.