Stuffing the Stockings

I always feel like a little bit of a failure when it comes to Christmas stockings.  I put so much effort into gift ideas that by the time I’m done, I have no energy for the stockings.  It’s like all my creativity flies out the window.

We’ve never really had traditional stocking gifts, although that would certainly make it easier on me.  It’s not like every year the kids get an orange in the toe, a Lifesavers storybook, some socks and candy or something.

I usually try to stick at least one fun, unexpected thing in each stocking.  My big problem is that I always forget how small they really are.  I mean, we all have fairly standard-size Christmas stockings…it’s not like we have baby socks tacked to the mantle or something.  But once I start panicking about what to put in the stockings, it puts me into overdrive and I go a little crazy.

There’s always candy of some kind, then I start thinking of other ‘little’ items and by the time I head down to fill stockings on Christmas Eve night, I’m standing there trying to figure out how to Tetris all this stuff into a stocking about half the size I imagined it would be.  (Side note:  When I was a kid, I was always tempted to hang up one of those humongous, decorative stockings in place of my regular one to see if Santa would just blithely fill it to the top with goodies.)

I do most of my Christmas shopping online, so having to make a last minute shopping trip at an actual store always adds a little frisson of stress to the holiday.  As organized as I am about gifts (yes, I use a spreadsheet), I am just completely frazzled over the stockings.  Already I ordered one thing thinking it would be a perfect stocking stuffer, only to get it in the mail recently and realize that not only is it too big for a stocking, it’s so heavy that it would promptly pull the stocking right to the floor.

I’ve got 11 days and there’s hope for me yet…maybe this year I’ll get the stocking purchases made before Christmas Eve, and in realistic sizes and quantities!

Christmas morning stockings…Paige with ‘her preshusss’