Christmas Stockings

I think we have quite unusual Christmas stockings in our family.  My Mum made them on our first Christmas, she had seen them made by a  Canadian lady who lived in the upstairs flat (although my sister remembers it as a German lady).

The stockings are traditional red with some kind of fur at the top, but the nice idea is that each year a different charm is added.  Each year the children eagerly await receiving their stockings on Christmas Eve to see the new charm. The charms can be any kind of thing, mine includes an old ear ring that once belonged to my Mum, a pretty wooden badge that my aunty brought back from Austria.  They have such lovely memories for me.  Sadly now that my mum is no longer here,I don't get new charms, but it is lovely to search for new ones each year for my children.  I started off their stockings with a charm taken from mine.

My sister in Greece has made her children's stockings in more elf like shapes rather than Santa's boot shape, and she has green velvet at the top.

The photo also shows her stocking that my mum made when she was a baby.  Naomi was born about a month before Christmas, and myself and my other sister were aged about 11 and 10.  I still remember Naomi's first Christmas and nearly everything she had in her stocking including talcum powder and a wooden tortoise!

The first Christmas of your children is the most magical time of all.

While I am getting sentimental, I shall put in a photo of my favourite Christmas story.  I have had this one since I was tiny, I know that nearly everyone knows the story, but I just love the illustrations in this particular book and was so pleased when I had children to read it to.

I would love to know if they really have stockings like ours anywhere else, although I have read quite a lot of foreign magazines, I have never seen anything quite like our Christmas stockings.