Growing up my family had hand sewn stockings that my mom made - all matching red gingham. They were usually stuffed with candy and little toys like Hot Wheels cars and Care Bears.
Since we no longer do big gift exchanges between all of us, but didn’t want to deprive Mom of her joy of “picking up a few things” we conceded that we could still have stockings each year.
There aren’t as many gifts and there are a few more people, and this morning ritual in my pjs is still one of my favorite things about being together at Christmas.
Whether is was the chilly air or long lines at the Post Office, visitors for our 11th day of Wishmas were few. Those that came had the opportunity to decorate a Christmas stocking.
I’m not a super artistic person but I enjoy the occasional simple craft project like this one.
A little gold ribbon, some glitter and glue and a plain red stocking can become a personalized catchall for tidings of Christmas joy.
I found a fun story of possibly how the first stockings came to be in use by L Frank Baum:
Now it was on this same Christmas Eve that little Margot and her brother Dick and her cousins Ned and Sara, who were visiting at Margot’s house, came in from making a snow man, with their clothes damp, their mittens dripping and their
shoes and stockings wet through and through. They were not
scolded, for Margot’s mother knew the snow was melting, but
they were sent early to bed that their clothes might be hung
over chairs to dry. The shoes were placed on the red tiles of
the hearth, where the heat from the hot embers would strike
them, and the stockings were carefully hung in a row by the
chimney, directly over the fireplace. That was the reason
Santa Claus noticed them when he came down the chimney that
night and all the household were fast asleep. He was in a
tremendous hurry and seeing the stockings all belonged to
children he quickly stuffed his toys into them and dashed up
the chimney again, appearing on the roof so suddenly that the
reindeer were astonished at his agility.
“I wish they would all hang up their stockings,” he thought,
as he drove to the next chimney. “It would save me a lot of
time and I could then visit more children before daybreak.”
When Margot and Dick and Ned and Sara jumped out of bed next
morning and ran downstairs to get their stockings from the
fireplace they were filled with delight to find the toys from
Santa Claus inside them. In fact, I think they found more
presents in their stockings than any other children of that
city had received, for Santa Claus was in a hurry and did not
stop to count the toys.
Of course they told all their little friends about it, and of
course every one of them decided to hang his own stockings by
the fireplace the next Christmas Eve. Even Bessie Blithesome,
who made a visit to that city with her father, the great Lord
of Lerd, heard the story from the children and hung her own
pretty stockings by the chimney when she returned home at
Christmas time.
On his next trip Santa Claus found so many stockings hung up in anticipation of his visit that he could fill them in a jiffy and be away again in half the time required to hunt the children up and place the toys by their bedsides.
The custom grew year after year, and has always been a great help to Santa Claus. And, with so many children to visit, he surely needs all the help we are able to give him.
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