Monday, December 17, 2012

Stockings are hung by the chimney with care…



Our tree is up.  Tom has to have a tree, and Laura helped with ours a couple of weeks ago.  Like last year, it has lights, but no ornaments.  Tom hung little candy canes, and most of them are Toby’s toys now.  Laura investigates under the tree occasionally; ostensibly to be sure Toby has not opened a package that does not have his name.  She usually announces if she found more packages to inspect.

Tonight Laura wondered about the stockings.  Surely it was time to hang them.  Stockings have been quite the tradition at our house since we all moved in together.  Jan and Tom, mom and me.  Almost twenty five years ago.  Mom and Jan made stockings for the four of us, and a few to spare. 

Even back then gifts we exchanged fit in our Santa sized stockings. Add that no one needed much of anything, and gifts among the four of us became bars of soap, toothpaste, chocolates, Jordan almonds (yum!).  The last Christmas she was alive mom put a wonderful wooden pencil in my stocking. Santa with a flowing beard carved the length still hangs by its gold thread on my bulletin board.

We retired mom’s stocking and spread out the remaining three:  Janice, Tom, Joanne. I suppose Mom's worked its way to the bottom of the stocking box, but I never gave it much thought.



Because Laura couldn’t wait another minute Tom sent her deep into the cubby under the eaves to retrieve stockings.  Little girls are just wonderful to have handy!  She came down with five and began placing them on the mantle.



I looked up and said “That’s not mine.”  Laura looked startled but Jan smiled and said “You’re Grandma now.”  And, Jan is inspired to go puff paint shopping tomorrow to get Emily and Laura written on the last two stockings on the mantle.


19 comments:

  1. yes she does ;-) the mantle looks great. merry christmas to you and your family.

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  2. I always loved our stockings when I was a kid. Our mom made them, felt and sequins and beads. But it's a tradition that I have left behind. I raised my children in a different tradition and have abandoned them all myself. But I still have my stocking around here somewhere.

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  3. It looks like you are fully ready for Christmas now :)

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  4. Lovely Christmas stockings....I remember hanging my long brown stockings on my doorknob Christmas Eve.

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  5. No stockings this year (we used the stair railing - no mantel in the house). A few years ago one of the kids (adults by then) missed the stockings but we didn't have time to go find them. She improvised and hung colorful plastic bags that the newspaper was delivered in. I should look for that picture.

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  6. Sadly we don't have a place where we can hang stockings here in Hawaii, but we used to hang them in Illinois. I love your stockings. They're so beautiful and festive.

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  7. I like your mantel and I love the patchwork stockings. I've never seen patchwork stockings before.
    We had small stockings when the kids were very young, but once they were in school, the stockings were a bit bigger and hung on the bedpost of each child instead. They were allowed to open what was in those instead of waking us up at the crack of dawn.

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  8. The stockings are beautiful. Every year I do stockings for whoever is staying with us. This year there are four -- only one is a child! As of last week I had compiled enough to fill the four of them. We don't hang them on the fireplace, but I place them on the sofa and chair. In England it's traditional to put the stocking at the foot of the bed -- a tradition I never followed because the children were never asleep!

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  9. Love the patchwork, made with love stockings! I bet the gr-kids are pretty excited.

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  10. Interesting how we "ease" into a role and hardly notice it has happened. Your description sounds peaceful and perfect. Janice, the quilter, made the stockings? Must be time to get ours out and up. Thanks for the pleasant prodding.

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  11. Those are beautiful stockings and I love the history and tradition they come with.

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  12. What a lovely look at your family stockings so nice to see hanging by the fireplace.

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  13. It brought tears to my eyes to see the "grandma" stocking..How blessed you are as are the grandchildren. So nice to see what children bring into a house at Christmas time. Don't ever remember being there and seeing stockings..Nice.

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  14. There's nothing quite so Christmassy as a mantel full of stockings, and especially such good looking ones as these. Nice.

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