The stockings were hung…

I love Christmas. I love everything about it actually…

from the food to the presents to the songs to the TV shows to the decorations… I love it all. Of course, it’s really all about the birth of Baby Jesus, but the whole Christmastime experience really is, like the song says, “the most wonderful time of the year.”

And this year (maybe because of the coronavirus) it all seems to have started early. I’ve always been one of those folks who says, “Let’s do Thanksgiving first!” but it just wasn’t happening this year. We put our Christmas tree up on Nov. 15, giving us six full weeks of Christmas cheer.

Now I can’t believe we haven’t always done this!

In addition to the tree, we have a collection of knicknacks and doo-dads that we always put out to ring in the holiday season. My wife has a collection of snowmen, we’ve got a bunch of little Christmas candles and Santa statues and little artsy-fartsy things that go all around the house. And, of course, there are the stockings.

When I was a little kid, my Mom, like many of your moms if you’re old enough, crafted one of those decorative Christmas stocking for each of her kids. You know the ones I mean, right? They came from the Hancock’s store or someplace similar and they were all felt and sequins and little cut-out pieces that made a picture. Mine was Santa’s sleigh being pulled by a reindeer. How do I know this? Because I still have it, of course. It’s hanging as we speak on the wall beneath our staircase (we don’t have a chimney by which to hang our stockings). My sis-

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ters each had one too. One with a decorative snowman carrying gift boxes and the other with a Christmas angel and star and such. In case you were wondering, the company that makes those is Bucilla, and yes, you can still get them. I found several online!

And of course, once we started having kids, Mammaw couldn’t leave those poor kids without stockings too! So, yes, we also have four more of those awesome stockings hanging up. Funny thing though… either my Mom made mine backwards or Bucilla made a corporate decision to reverse the design in later years, because the “toe” of my stocking hangs to the left and all of my kids’ stockings hang to the right.

(maybe it’s because I’m left-handed?)

imperfections that make life perfect, right?

Photo by Ralph Hardin