The Stocking

Starting yesterday, I decided I am going to write a blog every day.  I was originally going to try to follow a pattern.  For example, I'd share a Christmas memory on Mondays, recipe on Tuesdays, favorite song on Wednesdays, etc.  But I am just not that organized and I don't like locking myself into a "blogging schedule" where I have to write about a certain thing on a certain day even if I am more inspired to write about something else.  So, instead, I will share all of these things...recipes, favorite/least favorite songs, memories and anecdotes, etc.  I'll just write them as they come to me. 


Yesterday, I was excited to share a memory, and today I am going to share another one.  This one is pertaining to my Christmas stocking.  As a family, we never did have uniform stockings.  Each of us simply had stockings from wherever or whenever we got them.  My mom had made my sister's stocking, my parents' stockings had been ordered out of a magazine.  And mine? Well...

I had a red and white knit snoopy stocking (the exact same as the one pictured above).  I liked my stocking.  I liked snoopy.  There was just ONE problem! Every Christmas morning, when I'd wake up and go downstairs, everyone ELSE's stocking looked like cute little boots stuffed with goodies.

And mine was a stretched-out, misshapen sack almost touching the ground.  I didn't get why my stocking looked so strange when stuffed full of goodies while all the others were so cute! I'd love to provide a visual of the stark contrast in the stockings, but I don't have the stocking here and can't seem to find a picture online.  Who would take a picture of such an odd-looking thing anyway?

So, one Christmas, I decided it was time to ask for a new stocking.  I think I was about 7 or 8 years old and I'd just had enough Christmases of seeing my weird stocking in comparison to all the other cute ones.  My mom didn't seem to understand why I wanted a new stocking.  And I suppose that I must have been having trouble communicating my reasoning to her at the time.  I think I said something along the lines of "My stocking is weird." And she probably thought I felt I had outgrown snoopy.

So, we went to the mall to get a new stocking.  We found a kiosk where I picked out a purple and pink one with an ornament on it.  They even embroidered my name at the top.  I was SO excited! I had my own new stocking that SURELY would look BEAUTIFUL stuffed with goodies on Christmas morning.

I woke up excited the next morning and ran down the stairs only to find all of the other stockings still looked like stuffed boots and mine was sagging AGAIN! It's like a tube almost reaching the floor.  WHAT? HOW? Clearly, at this age, I did not understand that it was the knit fabric of the stocking that made it lose its shape.  And so I was pretty disappointed.  This is why I don't think I communicated clearly to my mother why I wanted a new stocking.  Because if she really knew why, I doubt she would have let me get the same kind of stocking all over again in a different color!

I don't remember when this was, but at some age I was finally able to explain to her my issue with my stocking--how I hated it that mine looked like a misshapen tube while everyone else's held their shape.  We discovered the way she stuffed it was what made most of the difference.  She was putting the heavy things like a bag of M&Ms at the bottom and the light things on top.  My dad pointed out that my stocking was likely to hold its shape if she put the light things on the bottom and the heavy ones at top! What a breakthrough! That helped for the most part.

When I was in college, I decided to go buy myself a classic Christmas stocking.  Because I guess I just liked uniformity, and my stocking never did completely hold its shape no matter how she stuffed it.

From then on, I have had this kind of stocking.  I just find it funny it took us so long to communicate or figure out the reason my stocking seemed to have so much more trouble holding goodies than the rest did.