All About Stocking Stuffers

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Your stories and traditions about Stocking Stuffers and Christmas

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Those Sunny Oranges...
"As a child "santa" always put an orange in the bottom of our stockings and they always had a bagful of chocolate coins and a lifesaver storybook. As an adult I carry on the tradition with my own family and my oldest brother, who I do a stocking for every year." - Deb from Maine

Santa Gets Resourceful
"When my sister & I were growing up, we would find odd gifts in our stockings. Apparently our Mom would often forget about stocking stuffers until late Christmas Eve. She would improvise with whatever she could find. The next morning we would find oranges, potatoes even carrots in our stockings!" - Kelli

Stocking Stuffers: Not Just for Kids!
"Opening our stockings early Christmas morning has always been a great holiday tradition of our large family. Now that we are older, we take turns stuffing each others stockings at our mothers home right around midnight, while our own little ones dream about Santa and the wonders of Christmas. We still get up early, and coo and exclaim over each little treasure before starting the coffee, and bring a cup to Ma, to enjoy peacefully, before the inevitable chaos reigns." - Tina

Savoring Stockings
"At our house we wrap each and every item in the stocking! we even wrap up fingernail clippers, chapstick, and gum! It makes christmas last a little longer and creates some great laughs." – Kyle from Vermont

Found and Homemade Stuffers are Special
"Mom and dad always said it was Santa Claus that filled the stockings on Xmas eve. My dad grew up in Ark. and said his stocking always had an orange and lots of walnuts, Santa was poor then, and the walnuts just fell from the trees and were free if Santa wanted to pick them up. Mom always said it was not xmas unless the gifts were homemade, so I started making my parents gifts and my son loves to do the same, for everyone, even though he is 12 yrs old." – Sharon

All I Want for Christmas is My New PJs
"Every year on Christmas Eve my parents give my 4 siblings and I one gift, and my parents exchange one gift themselves. It is always new pajamas. We put them on and sit in front of the fire drinking hot chocolate and eating homemade cookies. We talk about Christmas until we are tired, then we go to bed and in the morning when we take our Christmas pictures we are all wearing nice new pajamas." – Janelle from New York

Fun Christmas Eve Games
"every xmas eve we have a nice beautiful dinner and gathering. after dinner we all sit down and enjoy a nice punch, coco, coffee, [or] eggnog depending on what i am in the mood to make (i try to change it up each season, [a] habit from being in the bar business in my younger years). anyway while we are enjoying that my mother and her 2 sisters get a collection of unique and unusuall items. they will then pass them around and have the rest of the family try to guess what they are used for. they are just a bunch of "around the house tools" that you [don't] see everyday but come in very handy... ...once that is done and everyone takes what they would find useful we play 2 different games. each year my aunt goes out and finds a unique xmas tree ordiment that we have to find on the tree. winner gets the dvd of the year." - Brian

A Few More Minutes of Quiet for Mom and Dad
"I grew up in England. Traditionally Father Christmas fills the stocking on the end of the bed for the children to find in the morning. I can still remember the thrill of waking up to the weight of the stocking on my feet! The stocking always contained the usual small gifts, but nestled in the toe were always a few unshelled nuts, some shiney coins and a tangerine. The smell of tangerines reminds me of Christmas to this day. Another big advantage of leaving the stocking this way is that the children wake up early, as usual, on Christmas day, but then open their stockings in bed before waking up their parents!! I did not realize the benefit of this until I had my own children, who would share their stockings with each other before coming into my bedroom. This way also helps explain how some children get much bigger gifts than others - Father Christmas fills the stockings, but people buy the bigger gifts." - Susan

Stowing Stuffers
"I keep a large zip loc bag (the right size to fill our stockings) for each of my children stashed away, and add the stocking stuffers to it as I find them. Visually, I can see thru and tell how much I still need to get for them, or if one is ahead of the other. They make a great stash place." - Susan

Savoring Christmas Day
"Since my daughter was able to rip paper, we have had the tradition of having her open her stocking while joining us in bed. It was a fun family time with lots of laughing. Beginning with breakfast and throughout the day, she would open a present or two; the last one opened just before she said goodnight. We did the same thing (though far fewer in number), saving that one special opening until after she was well tucked in. It was ceremonious in nature a we would have a glass of wine and our last of our Christmas music playing. Those were indeed, very special times." - Barb

Memorable Maple Candy
"My mother is from up north, and when I was growing up, it just was not Christmas unless we had maple sugar candy in our stocking on Christmas morning. Many years ago, when my parents retired and moved out of the city, they were unable to find any maple sugar candy locally... so we searched online and were able to find some to ship to them. The tradition continues today; we always send maple sugar candy to my parents at Christmas." - Jill from Texas

Silly Gift Guessing
"My father started a family tradition of labeling our christmas gift with a hint about the gift. This hint may or may not be a help in guessing the gift. It was something that would give us all a laugh. My father is gone now but my brother and I have continued the tradition with our own children and grandchildren." - Merrie from Texas

Everlasting Candy Canes
"Memories come flooding back when I see the large candy canes sticking out of the top of a christmas stocking. My grandparents use to give each of us kids one every year and we never got tired of them. Most of the time it took a month or more to eat them. I finally found them at WalGreens last year after several years of not seeing them. My Grandparents passed away many years ago and I am now renewing the large candy cane in the stocking for my own kids." – Lacinda
* note from Plumpstocking.com: We have large candy cane sticks that are 7-1/4" long - perfect for sticking out of a stocking! Find them here: Large Candy Sticks

The Missing Sock
"When I gave my daughter her stocking last Christmas, she promptly emptied it out, and then declared 'Where is my other one?', so I told her that she only gets one. I laughed all day long after she responded 'I must have been bad this year. I have two feet but Santa only brought me one sock.'" – Sara from Ohio

Nothing Better Than a Stocking
"When I was a child, I had a stretchy knit Christmas stocking that started out regular size and got bigger and longer as it was filled. My mother hunted for stocking stuffers all year to put in that thing - I'd bet there were 30 or more items! I don't know how she found the time to gift wrap, with ribbons and bows, every single item. Anyway, on Christmas morning I would creep downstairs at the crack of dawn to retrieve my stocking. Back in my room, I'd lay out my loot on my bed and savor each little item. Some things were funny, some were cute, and there were always candy and treats. The stocking was so neat and fun that I hardly cared about the rest of the gifts under the tree (which was a boon for a family that was always on a budget)!" - Kathleen from California

Thanks for sharing your ideas and traditions with us!

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