With Halloween candy wrappers still blowing down the sidewalk, another sign of the season appear within mailboxes all over the country. Even in a digital age, where millions of products are just a hey Siri away, Christmas catalogs still hold a place in the cultural consumer calendar. For the outdoorsman, one wish book is a comforting omen of the coming holidays: the Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s Christmas Gift Guide.

For decades, an angler or hunter could expect to receive at least a few hundred pounds’ worth of glossy pages from these two companies. Fishing, Spring Hunting, Fly Fishing, Fall Hunting, and Christmas catalogs came from each brand within days of each other. As waste-consciousness and online shopping converged, the size and quantity of these printings diminished. Then, upon Bass Pro’s purchase  of Cabela’s in 2017, mailboxes emptied out even more.

But there is still the Christmas Gift Guide.

Yes, there is virtue in shopping small. There is honor in shopping local. There is nobility in eschewing wanton paper consumption and practices with materialistic overtones. There’s also some cool game cameras that send images to your cell phone on pages 128-129. There’s camo bedding on page 76, crossbows on page 146, and an old timey creel on page 113.

Christmas catalogs like this aren’t comprehensive. There are precisely four fly fishing specific  items in this year’s edition. One of which is the aforementioned creel; another is a seven dollar plaid rod sock. These seasonal offerings aren’t meant to present every SKU available. You flip pages and see everything from electric filet knives to remarkably modest Realtree-trimmed intimates. You get a sense of what is out there. You realize you don’t have a rain jacket. You  realize you don’t have a meat grinder. Now you can give grandma a couple of ideas when she asks you what you want for Christmas.

This catalog is the outdoors equivalent of the Sears  Wish Book. Junior might dogear a page showcasing the perfect pellet rifle. On his way to picking out the perfect weapon, he gets to see all the things that outdoorsmen collect to outfit themselves. Things don’t make adventures or memories, but looking at them can stimulate minds to warmer days in the field. That camo hat that finds its way from Santa’s list to under the tree to in the picture for her first spring turkey does matter.  It has to start somewhere. Sometimes, that place is a picture on  page 166.

Christmas is about so much more than stuff. That is objectively undeniable.

Yet stuff can get involved in the right way. When done properly wishing and hinting and buying and giving and using can be very, very good. The wishing might get triggered by browsing a website or walking through a store aisle. For what it is worth, there are generations who have had wishes planted and watered in the fertile soil of outdoor gear catalogs. They come in early November, crisp and fresh. By the first week of December, they’ve been read, folded, dropped, torn, but used well.

And if you’re skeptical? Try to get through the fruitcake and wild game section without considering placing an order. (This year you’ll see that on pages 81-85.)