FOR many of us, buying a pair of socks is a classic standby gift idea at Christmas.
Last year my purchases included several pairs of yellow and black stretchy crew socks featuring buzzy bees and a couple more pairs of green and red socks featuring watermelons.
Colourful, eyebrow-catching, but not exactly heart-warming.
This festive season my sock gifting-giving is sure to be received very differently.
There’s the prospect of some genuine fun and joy after a friend alerted me to the range of religious socks available online festooned with apostles and saints, Church symbols and bible verses.
Pope Francis’ smiling face on a pair of socks, St Teresa of Calcutta, St Patrick, St Francis of Assisi, St Dymphna, St Therese of Lisieux – the list goes on and on as you click between websites.
There are socks for all seasons, every feast day and celebration.
On the American shopping site ETSY a pair of Our Lady of Guadalupe socks sells for $20.18 and is one of its most popular items.
“Boyfriend loves them. Really fun and cute,” katherinemaryclare1 wrote as feedback, giving the socks a five-star rating.
The more you explore, the more religious socks you will find.
Sock Religious boasts it is the world’s largest Catholic sock company.
There you’ll find “Francis for Your Feet” and “JPII for your Shoe” and the suggestion to buyers: “Bring your faith into the workplace or spice up your Sunday best.”
Some of the company’s best-selling socks feature St Joan of Arc, St Joseph, St Therese, St Anthony, while more subtle designs include rosary socks and Keys to the Kingdom socks. Most retail for $14 a pair.
There’s no irony like losing your St Anthony socks, one buyer points out.
Scott Williams, who founded Sock Religious with his wife Elisabeth in 2017, says the idea of their company “started out kind of as a joke” as they were driving one day and they started talking about socks.
“And then we thought: Well, what if we made saint socks and we were able to celebrate feast days…”
As the joke turned into a serious family business idea the Williams decided to incorporate unity, charity, and joy as their core company values.
“The ability to bring joy to people through socks is fun,” Mr Williams said.
“I think people can have this assumption that Catholicism is boring, and that’s so far from the truth. This is an opportunity to laugh, to smile, to giggle.
“So, for example, like the St. Joseph sock — we usually put saint quotes on the bottom, but that was hard to do for St. Joseph because he was never quoted in the Bible, so there’s just empty quotes with “—St Joseph”.
“Our Lady of Grace sock has a snake on the bottom of it, so you’re helping Mary stomp on the serpent’s head.
“Things like that just bring so much joy to people’s lives, and that’s something that we want to do, is spark that joy.”
The Sock Religious website also suggests “these socks are sure to be a conversation starter and evangelisation opportunity”.
Mr Williams recalls a customer who wore his St. John Paul socks on an airplane, and after the flight had an airline attendant tell him she was struggling with her faith.
She told the man she’d asked God “to show me the Pope,” and sure enough there he was wearing Pope socks.
Postscript: SockReligious is on the lookout for new designs. They’ve been asked to add St Mary MacKillop socks to the next Christmas collection. Can you add to their design wish-list?
