A gift she uses every morning beats a gift she thanks you for and puts in a drawer. My mom has had a drawer full of those: pretty, stiff, and never worn because getting into them took a chair, a shoehorn and a hand.

These go on like a sock. She steps in standing, the ribbed collar holds her heel, and the little cord on top is there if she wants it looser. No laces, no help. "I am 78 years old. I worry about falling and wanted to find shoes that made me feel steadier," one woman wrote. "I loved my first pair and now have them in many colors."

Arthritis, swelling by the afternoon, a bunion she has hidden in wide sneakers for years: a hard shoe cuts in on all of it. These are knit across the entire top and down both sides, so they give instead of pressing.

"The shoes are perfect for my mom's bunions," one daughter wrote. "My mom and myself can not find shoes that are comfortable all day," wrote another, before she found these. I order my mom's usual size and the knit does the rest.

The toe box is roomy, so her toes spread instead of stacking, and the sole is flat and flexible, so she stands the way her body was built to stand. "I can wiggle my toes!" one woman wrote. Another, on her feedback form: "They are very comfortable. I'm 90 years old and have Arthritis and pain in my feet and legs."

She wore them in the house for a week, then to church, then to the grocery store. That is the test: a shoe she wears out of the house is a shoe she likes.

Every January we get the second email: she wears them every day, she asks for another color, our whole family has them now. "My 92 yr old mother (who got my mistake shoes) wants to sleep in them, they're so comfortable," one daughter wrote. Another: "I ordered a pair of white one for my mom and I. We both love them, but wanted black ones for winter."

They go in the washing machine, they weigh about as much as a pair of socks, and they look like a nice pair of flats, not like something from a medical catalog. One woman wrote that her mom loved them too, so she borrowed her second pair.

2 pairs, 2 colors: one for her and one for you, or one for her and one for the sister who will ask where she got them. "Got one for me and for my mom," one woman wrote on our survey, hoping "that she can wear them everywhere." Every order comes with easy returns, no questions asked, so a wrong size is a swap, not a problem.

The winter colors are a small run and they do not restock before Christmas. If your mom is the one in those emails, order hers today.