Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Another tradition- Stockings

I know there are tons of stocking traditions out there. I personally love the way my dad's family does stockings. We used to exchange gifts and do stockings, but now that there are at least 27 people present every year, we only do stockings.

When we were little, someone would go to the grocery store and get a bunch of brown paper sacks. They would bring them home and we would all decorate them with lots of Christmas spirit and put our names on them. Now that there are no little children, my Grandmother has opted to get the humongous gift bags and put our names on them.

You're probably thinking surely these bags don't get filled, but oh no...most years they are pretty full. Everyone is supposed to pick a small gift under $5 for everyone. We always get socks, underwear, lotion, etc. We also get lots of really fun stuff like card games, earrings, bubble bath. Sometimes these gifts are homemade and other years they are store bought. We have gotten lots of homemade scarves or ornaments.

This used to be a morning tradition, but now that we all live in the real world and have jobs and are married, it seems we are doing it at night. So, this is how it works. Before dinner, all of the stockings get lined up in the garage. They are usually grouped by "family" (this makes it easier to find your siblings). Each person takes turns going out to the garage and putting their items in the stockings. After dinner the stockings get carried in to the living room and dug in to. Last year all of the guys got styrofoam swords and had a blast outside when we were done opening.

I love these stockings! We hardly ever know who anything is from, but usually it is announced at some point. Someone may shout "who did the coffee mugs this year?" and that person would say, "me!"....of course this has to be repeated 10 times to help the old folks, but it is still lots of fun! Usually I am REALLY good at stocking up through out the year, but not this year. I have lots of things for my nephew, and I handmade some gifts for my immediate family, but that's all the good ones I have so far.

Another great thing is that this is ALWAYS celebrated after Christmas, so if you need some more things for stockings they are usually dirt cheap. I will be hitting up Bath & Body works on December 26/27 while they are having their huge 70% off sale.

2 comments:

grey rose (they/them) said...

sounds like total Christmas fun! love it!

Anonymous said...

This is such a COOL tradition! I remember your mom doing some really neat homemade gifts in years past for these unusual "stockings":)