“The stockings were hung by the chimney” didn’t really apply to our Christmas stockings because we never lived in a house with a fireplace! But we did have stockings, probably hung on a nail or with tape on the wall, like the one in this photo taken at my sister Jane’s home when her children were young:
It was always fun to get up on Christmas morning and see what Santa had left in your stocking. It was filled with little gifts: toys or games, a small book, pen or pencil, playing cards, jacks, candy. Santa always left breakfast in your stocking too: an apple, a banana, an orange stuffed down in the toe, and some unshelled nuts!
I don’t have my childhood Christmas stocking, having lost it in a hasty move as a young adult. I wish I had it: my parents bought it for me in Alaska, during one of those years when Daddy had been working steadily and had money to spend.
Here is a photo of one of my son’s Christmas stockings. This one was “just for show,” that is, Santa didn’t fill it with goodies on Christmas Eve. It was given to him by his Grandma Nettie.
Family tradition is that you only have a Christmas stocking until you are 18 or married. But I continue to fill stockings every year for my son, his wife, and my two grandchildren, even though all of them are beyond the mandated age! Each has a stocking with his or her initial on it that is filled with silly toys, sample-size toiletries, candy, socks, and other odds and ends. (My daughter-in-law Christina was shocked when she got her first stocking—she was concerned we were trying to tell her something by giving her deodorant, a toothbrush and sample-size toothpaste!)
It will be fun when I can add stockings for great-grandchildren to the fray!
The
Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories (ACCM) gives you an opportunity to write
about and share your family’s holiday history 24 different ways during 24 days
in December! Learn more at http://adventcalendar.geneabloggers.com.
This post was originally published in 2011.
© 2012 Denise Spurlock
