Part of my love for Christmas decorations of any sort includes a love of Christmas stockings. We always hang our 5 stockings by the fireplace with care (which is indirectly by the chimney, I suppose), plus our 2 for our pets Leppie the Leopard Gecko and Cookie the not-so-mini Rex.
The kids rearrange them to get a better position, and clearly Brady is currently winning.
Anyway, I do hang a few more stockings along the staircase:
There are 39 in the house including the 5 on the mantle, and 6 others on the other side of the balcony. There are two more in my office at school, so that makes 41 stockings. We don't think Santa ever gets confused . . . at least it hasn't been a problem so far.
It would take me hours to write about every stocking, although every one does have a story. My mother has many of the same ones on her staircase, so the obsession has some root in genetics (she only has the one tree, though, so hers is better managed than mine). I did want to share the story of a few of the stockings, though.
These three represent the only counted cross stitch I've ever completed and kept for myself. My mother bought me the three stockings with the cross stitch tops on them and that inspired me to complete these. I found a pattern with the gift box and a boy and girl bear, so I split them between two stockings. I finally found a hobby horse for Abby that sort of matched. It took almost a year, but I finished them just in time for Christmas in 2004.
Most of the stockings I've bought at the Nutcracker market with my mother. Some years I just close my eyes and point, but some years I find a special connection with a stocking.
The one above in the center with the chimney and tree was one I bought the year Brady played a Santa stuck in a chimney in the school choir program.
My mom and dad made and painted the chimney for him to get stuck in, and Bill and I made the window with the trees and snowman in the background. The amazing thing is that I found the stocking after the play was over - and even the window was pretty close!
These are two more Nutcracker stockings:
The Nutcracker is special because I bought it the very first year that my mom and I went to the Nutcracker market, so it always reminds me what a wonderful tradition that is for the two of us. The snowman I bought the year after Bill's brother Joe died of cancer. Something about this guy's friendly look reminded me of Joe. Amazingly enough, the year I bought the snowman stocking, it snowed on Christmas eve!
We were able to build our one and only Texas snowman!
Last group:
The stocking on the left with the white cat is my Nana stocking. Nana is what the kids call my mother, and the white cat represents two of my mother's favorite cats, Perky (who lived to be almost 20), whom she inherited from her father and mother, and Queenie, who was a beautiful white cat she bought a few years after Perky.
The Santa in his workshop stocking on the right is my Grampy stocking. My dad can fix or build just about anything, and the image of Santa busy at work reminds the kids (and me) of Grampy.
The two Santa golfers in the middle are for Bill and his dad who the kids call Pop. I can't decide if Bill is the one driving the ball or putting. Generally I think Bill is the one taking a full swing, but Pop has a few good swings left in him as well. Both love to be out on the golf course, in fact Bill is going down to Lake Jackson tomorrow to play a round before Christmas. It is 75 degrees and beautiful today. Definitely no white Christmas for us!
