We Hung Stockings With Care
Hanging the Christmas stocking was a lot more exciting when we were kids. In our family we picked one of our own stockings … yeah, the socks we wore … to hang by the chimney with care. We could be pretty ingenius about it, too. I remember the year Bill picked a big old work sock, with a hole in the toe and a bucket beneath it. I tried for a pair of my big, long socks that used to be held up with a garter belt but that was pretty much vetoed as soon as the idea surfaced. I was lucky, though, to have a pair of knee socks that were stretched out of shape … wouldn’t stay up but were good to save in the back of my drawer for Christmas. The stockings hung with dignity and pride … all different … sometimes an argyle, sometimes woolen work socks, never an ordinary white anklet!
I remember the magic of hanging an empty stocking before going to bed; hoping I had been good enough that Santa would fill it and bring me a present. I actually remember a few times when I was a bit worried I wouldn’t make the cut. What a relief it was when we kids, who had to line up from shortest to tallest before we could walk into the front room on Christmas morning, got far enough into the kitchen that we could see bulging stockings. They were stretched over the orange in the toe, candy and nuts, small gifts, an apple in the heel … more candy and nuts, and a big candy cane poking out the top beside the banana.
We had a family rule. No one touched their stockings until after the traditional Christmas breakfast. Mmmmm … ham, eggs, pancakes or waffles, fruit cocktail, hashed brown potato’s … It sounds so good now but it was so hard to eat when I was small.
These are three of the traditions … hanging the socks, lining up according to height, and not opening the stockings until after the big Christmas breakfast or three of the traditions we continued with our own children and I think they have pretty much carried it forward with their own. I’ll post more of the traditions in the coming weeks.
