Elves, Santa, Scrooge, the Grinch and the me of 1973. We've all got something in common.

Nope, not Christmas. Not even a gas crisis. Stocking caps!

Oh how I loved my striped, knitted, absurdly long stocking cap, an item of clothing that suddenly flared in pre-teen popularity, along with such other notable fads as the one-piece "jump suit" (mine was solid purple), Nehru collars (took me decades to realize Nehru was an Indian leader, not just a notch), bellbottoms (made everyone look short and stoned) and lumber jackets (nothing bad to say about those. They still look great, though now, rather than hippies, for me they conjure up the Brawny Towel guy ... which shows where I'm at in life.) But back to stocking caps.

I've got no idea (and, worse, neither does Wikipedia!) why they popped up as mod gear for a while, but for eons of human history, they were not hip accessories, they were nighttime necessities. Consider the fact that in old novels you read about the characters breaking the ice that formed overnight in their washbasins before they could splash their faces clean on winter mornings. That's when you realize that what WE consider chilly indoors would be a day at the spa for anyone on any page of Dickens.

Nightcaps came in different shapes: some were beanies, some had a folded brim, but the ones that seem to have made it into modern day lore are the ones that tapered off like a windsock. Or like a sock, period. Hence the term stocking caps. Ostensibly the sock part trapped warm air inside. Another version of these caps, called a tuque, evolved into the hat you see on the Food Channel (unless you are too busy looking at the food): a chef's toque.

The reason it seems like every character we associate with Christmas is wearing a stocking cap is because they all hail from the days before central heating. What look like the good old days were really the good cold days, and recently, that's an era parts of New York City revisited. "During Sandy, we had to sleep with our hats on," says my friend Heli David, whose entire Manhattan neighborhood lost power for about a week. "The apartment turned into an ice box," she says. In fact, it reminded her of her native Finland, where caps were a necessity for the many locals who would steam themselves in their sauna — separate from the house — and then hightail it back home to go to sleep. "You had to cover your head or your hair would turn into icicles."

The thing about nostalgia for stocking cap nights and fires in the grate is that it conjures up coziness without conjuring up any of the discomfort. Santa in his hat always looks jolly. But if it were me living in the era of freezing cold floors and all the fun of ice water in my basin, I'd long for one holiday gift above all others: Heat.

So this year, as we make our lists and check them twice, let's notice we are doing so without gloves on. When we're inside, we can't see our breath. And most of us have never suffered a chilblain — or even used the word.

That's a luxury even Scrooge couldn't afford (or why would he be wearing a stocking cap?). Here's hoping that this season for you is one of warmth.

Lenore Skenazy is the author of "Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry)," and, "Who's the Blonde That Married What's-His-Name? The Ultimate Tip-of-the-Tongue Test of Everything You Know You Know — But Can't Remember Right Now." To find out more about Lenore Skenazy ([email protected]) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.