A New Tradition: The Christmas stocking

With two new little ones to make Christmas sparkly and festive for this year, I have decided to start a new Mattews/Kircher tradition. I didn't have a stocking as a little girl. It was never a tradition that my parents choose to make. 

BUT, I have decided that my children will have stockings.

So, I’ve cut, sewn, decorated and painted stockings for them to use year on year and am really excited to start a fresh new tradition.

The Christmas stocking - is an empty sock or sock-shaped bag that children hang on Christmas Eve for Father Christmas to fill with small gifts of toys,  sweets, fruit and gold coins. If you have been bad, then you run the risk of waking up to a stocking full of coal. If you have been good, expect treasures galore.

There is no actual evidence as to the origins of the stocking, however there are many many legends that help explain this Christmas tradition.

Probably the most popular tradition is of Saint Nicholas. There are many variations to the lovely tale, but one goes a little like this.

Once upon a time there was a very very poor man with three beautiful daughters. He was too poor for his daughters to marry and he worried that they would never marry and have no one to look after them once he died. Saint Nicholas was passing through the town and heard of this tail from the local villagers. Saint Nicholas wanted to help but knew that the man was very proud so he decided to help by secretly giving the girls a bag of gold each. So one night he crept down thier chimney into the house and found the girls clothes hanging over the mantelpiece drying and placed the three bags of gold into the stockings drying, one for each girl. When the girls and their father woke up the next morning, they found the bags of gold coins and were of course, overjoyed. The girls all got married and lived happily ever after. Leading to the custom of Stockings at Christmas.

I have a few u-ni-k treasures that I will be filling Samson and Ida’s stockings with this year. Here are just a few of them.

Samson's stocking 

Hand Carved Wooden Ca

Organic cotton hat

Hand carved Breakfast Board

Ida's Stocking

Porcelain egg cup

A Creepy Crawly Paw Prints story

Hand knitted Bella