Homemade Stockings

We had our first Christmas as a new family last year. It was so fun to have our own little house to decorate and our own new traditions to start. Our house is very small, so it didn’t take long to decorate. We got a fake tree (though, very life-like) and hung a wreath on the door. And I made stockings.

In my parents’ house we used wooden shoes for stockings and in Brock’s family they had stopped doing them long before I came around. I didn’t have my wooden shoes yet and we didn’t own any stockings to hang up-what were we to do? (Please disregard the fact that we didn’t have a fire-place either. That’s what window-panes are for. Anyway, everyone knows Santa doesn’t need a chimney to find your stockings!) So, the hunt began-the search for the stockings that would grace our first Christmas.

First, I went shopping. I kind of had an idea that our first Christmas stockings should be special and memorable—something we could keep and enjoy forever. Unfortunately, all the really beautiful stockings I found were way outside our price-range. Discouraged, but not defeated, I went to my mother. She suggested I make some, and though I don’t know if she was totally serious at the time, I decided she was right. After all, what could be more memorable than homemade stockings?

Mom and I found some green fabric at the Happy Dragon and a few pretty trimmings (lace for me, and plaid for Brock), and then I spent the morning at my parents’ house cutting, sewing, and trimming a pair of very odd-looking stockings.

They turned out narrower than I had planned and the toes pointed too much, but they looked Christmasy enough and I thought it was fun making them. I wasn’t sure what Brock would think of them, but I knew he’d get a kick out of the fact that I’d tried. I figured if he really hated them, we could go out and buy a few reasonably nice stockings and I wouldn’t care.

He thought they were cute (and I was right, he laughed and laughed over them) and we hung them up right away. They were a little heavy for the wall, even empty, but I thought we’d lean them up against the wall when they were full, so that was all right.

On Christmas Eve, when we did stockings, I came in to find that he had bought me a pair of sheep-skin slippers and he had put them on our stockings for a surprise! With all the stuff we had put in them, they stood up like legs and I loved it!

So, the stockings were a hit and we had a lovely Christmas!