Plastic Stocking

I love stockings. As a kid I adored my stocking. I liked that it had a pretty ornament sewn on just for me. I liked that my mother had painted my name on it with glitter. I love that she had spelled my name correctly, which when you're name is Kathryn is a big deal. I loved all the candy my Dad filled it with, and the fruit, and the fruit cake. I loved the nuts in their shell and the toys we'd get every year, yo-yo's and silly putty. I loved the little books we'd get (I always got a "Pokey Little Puppy" book) and I like the penny dolls, the jewelry, the hair barrettes. I even liked the socks and underwear that would find their way into my stocking. I loved all the little things in it and I loved that it would take me days and days to get through it. A week at least for the chocolate santa.

Now as an adult I'm the one who's carrying the stocking tradition forward. But my first attempts have not been as spectacular as my childhood memories. Often I'll forget the oranges, or the chocolate santa. I never really get the right mix of toys and candies, it's usually heavy on one side or the other. I often get more stuff than will fit in the actual stocking too...so stocking toys end up becoming under-the-tree toys and lose some of that stocking charm.

Worst of all I never have the same stockings every year.

Instead of the lovingly crafted stockings my Mother made us, complete with our names, our special colors and our special angels. Instead of that musty, old feeling on each one, come from sitting in a box all year. Instead of that feeling that you have something that makes you part of the family, something that's your own but connects you to everyone else. Instead of all that nostalgia and romance we have brand-new stockings. Every year. It's not by design. Every year I break out all the ornaments, old stuff from our parents, new stuff from our newly-wed days. All the same and familiar. The same lights, the same blanket under the tree. The same angel at the top. But even though I pack everything away together, every year the stockings come up missing. So every year I buy new ones.

This year I found a set that were not quite my norm. Instead of furry topped stockings, or lace and beads, I picked out a set of needle-point stockings. Each with a different character on it, and each lined in a different color. Blue for my husband, red for me. They were very cute and I spent a good deal of time trying to decide just which ones I truly wanted. A good deal of time being at least 30 minutes of comparing and contrasting each and every one.

Finally, deciding on the gingerbread man and the deer, I took my two dearly found stockings up the register. So close to Christmas I expect long lines at stores and it doesn't bother me too much to hang around, even if I'm already carrying tons of bags of stocking stuffers. But just as I got up to the register, it broke. As did the one next to it. I waited while someone searched for a manager. I waited while they discussed the fact that the manager was at dinner. I waited while they fiddled with buttons and stared at tape. And while I waited the line behind be grew longer and the bags in my hands grew heavier. So heavy, so hot and so tired was I that I finally gave up, left my stockings and walked out the door with a plan to get my stockings at Bed, Bath and Beyond like I do every year. Bead, lace and all.

And I did in fact go to BB&B. I looked at each stocking carefully. I found a set I really liked. And standing there, carrying a number of bags, filled with stocking stuffers, I lamented the fact that I couldn't justify buying a second set of stockings when I'd already purchased my needlepoint set.

And under this short-tern memory loss (induced I'm sure by going to a hundred different stores in less than two hours) I walked out of BB&B, to my car and drove home. And it wasn't till I was getting ready to make up my stockings with all my goodies that I realized I had no stockings to stuff.

This year we'll be unpacking plastic bags. I might write our names on them for nostalgia's sake, but I'm afraid Santa is shaking his head at this very moment.