Thomas MacEntee at Geneabloggers is encouraging us to celebrate the 2011 Christmas season with a series of posts called the Advent Calendar of Memories. This is today’s entry.
Did you have one? Where did you hang it? What did you get in it? Do you have any Christmas stockings used by your ancestors?
What a surprise to discover in my baby book today that I did indeed have a Christmas stocking when I was a baby. In the year I was not-quite-one, my stocking apparently contained a ball. I do remember that when I was a bit older I would always get one of those stockings that had a cardboard backing and a see-through netting front and inside it would have odds and ends like a comic, a party-trumpet thingy and a small packet of teeth-breaking tiny lollies. They were always fun.
Somewhere along the line the main stocking tradition obviously fell by the wayside as I have no recollection of getting one filled with little trinkets or gifts. I’d guess I was far happier getting the books on my wish list rather than odds and ends. This also explains why we’ve never been very good with stockings for our own children, though we did adopt my husband’s family tradition of leaving a small gift, usually a book, wrapped up at the end of the bed, with the injunction to turn over once, go back to sleep, then read the book. None of that 5am waking-up malarkey in our house 🙂
One year however I found a pattern of a Kermit the Frog stocking that I made up for our youngest daughter. It’s never really done proper duty as a gift-holder and is more likely to decorate the living room. Perhaps this is the year to change that and find something to put in it for the grandchildren (other than lollies which those tropical ants like far too much).
Family history across the seas 