Christmas Stockings

While in my attic pulling out my Christmas decorations I cam across Jane's old Christmas stocking. You no doubt know the stocking routine at Christmas. The hanging of stockings by the fireplace mantle is a familiar Christmas custom here and in Europe. People with homes lacking fireplaces hang Christmas stockings from bedposts, doorknobs, windowsills, staircases and other areas. When Santa Claus arrives on Christmas Eve, he fills the stockings with small treats and gifts.

But where did that tradition start?  I have no answer except to refer you to a number of stocking traditions that claim the whole idea started there. The one I like most is that Saint Nicholas (that same guy on which much of modern Christmas is patterned) in the 3rd century put a bag of gold in a stocking and hung it on the fireplace mantle of a proud peasant, who Nicholas wanted to help without making an issue of it. And now every parent is a Saint Nicholas to his or her kids watch Christmas.

Even I got a stocking filled with "stuff'"as a kid. Santa must have told my parents to forgive me for all the mischievous behaviors that I displayed during the year. In those days the stockings were filled with little goodies- candy, small toys, socks (Horrors!), little puzzles etc. But over the years since, some Christmas stockings have some big items included.  For example, some people give their teenager kids or her first car by depositing its keys into the stocking. You may place any key of any car you have in mine if you wish.

Point is, the Christmas stocking is making a comeback. When as my mom knitted our stockings when I was a kid, now Macy's and other such places sell $75 elaborately embroidered Christmas stockings that can one-up the nosy neighbor who drops by  your house during the season.

In some countries, the contents of the Christmas stocking are the only gifts that a child receives at Christmas from Santa Claus, so they are a big deal. Unfortunately, Western Christmas tradition also says that a child who behaves badly during the year will not get a gift in their Christmas stocking and will receive a piece of coal instead. I suspect many politicians and reality TV stars get a lot of coal each Christmas.

Since my daughter is grown and gone from the households and I live alone I have no stockings at my home to fill anymore. The good news is that with no stockings hanging on my mantle there is a good possibility that I will finally escape the coal in a stocking routine than seems to fit me all to well.

May all your stockings be without holes and filled with gold this Christmas.