To be a bit sad I’ve never received a Christmas stocking?

It’s not minor. My mum used to make stockings for me and my brother still until we were well into our 20’s. As we became older teenagers we started helping our dad by contributing stocking gifts for our mum, felt like the least we could do with all the work she put into making everyone else’s. Now we make stockings for our own young kids but we don’t do them for the grown ups in the family any more. My mum gets to relax, but I think she misses it a little! I think now though we all have more than enough “stuff” and we used to spend so much of Christmas Day opening presents - now we focus on eating and playing games. But I think if I’d never had a stocking I’d feel very differently.

Do your kids know this? Perhaps you could gently nudge them that now they are adults they could get involved in making a stocking for you, too? Could be a lovely thing to all open together on Christmas morning before breakfast

Well yes, but they don't do that, do they? I meant so that she gets what she wants, but it's just to start them off - they're supposed to add to it. I buy stuff for myself and hand it over to DD early in December - I've forgotten everything I've bought by the time Christmas comes and so it's still a surprise!

Do one with your partner.
I still do a stocking for my husband he is nearly 60

It's for putting small treat gifts in.
That's the point of them.

Apparently when I was little I said to my Mum, I will drag my Christmas stocking in to show you as I expect it to be full of lovely things. A friend of mine had a letter saying she wanted surprises and my aunty asked me to find out exactly what she was expecting so those things could be bought but all she kept saying was she looked forward to unwrapping her surprises and then was disappointed as her stocking was not full of the things she wanted. As a confirmed chocaholic my favourite gift is still a chocolate selection pack and not one with any toffee things in like curly wurley. I think the best tin is Marks and Spencer's Big Mix as they don't have many toffee ones and it is far better than quality street or rose's even.

I don't do stockings for my children, I don't really see the point in them

I reckon you could sort out a stocking and get things you will enjoy ,some lovely chocolates ,a favourite new book by an author you like ,some bath things maybe a lovely bubble bath pack .Like others have commented I am sure if we knew you we would sort out a stocking. Why not sort it and then tell us what you put in it and the rest of us could list what we would want in our ideal stocking. I would want a luxury hot chocolate pack.

So sorry to hear that. I think you are absolutely allowed to feel sad.

Definitely ask your adult children for one this year. My teenagers do one for me and their Dad instead of a present bigger present and it is the best bit of Christmas. Nothing extravagant or wasteful (think things like mug, book, puzzle. chocolate, socks). I encourage them to go to charity and local shops. They put loads of thought into what we would really like and I love it for all the thought and care. Given the background I bet your children would love to do the same for you.

I also had never had a stocking until I met DH, we do one for each other every year

My MIL was rather startled the first time she got a stocking on Christmas Day when staying with us but I’m a big fan of them and don’t see why adults shouldn’t have small joys.

Stockings are so lovely / satsumas, chocolate, 50p, socks or something like that , soap or bubble bath, and a book or small toy - nothing wasteful, nothing wrapped , nothing really unpredictable , but a joy , a little magic

all lives deserve some magic

I would be asking the kids wistfully if they like stockings still because you don’t know never had one … and cross your fingers

You can’t go back in time but you can now enjoy the magic alongside your children

Not unreasonable at all @Jumpeduppantry I've never had a stocking either but I did have lovely presents and Christmases as a child, but presents were just under the tree.
My now adult dc still get them from/ filled by me and I've always enjoyed doing them. Dropped hints fell on deaf ears apart from DH buying me a stocking (empty) one year!! I mean, what could I say lol. He's generally lovely so I let it go.

Anyway, this year I decided I'd make one for myself but, reading this thread, I'm going to ask them to do one for me - between the three of them. Surely they could manage that?!
Or maybe I should stick to the original plan.

@Jumpeduppantry In your shoes I'd go ahead and buy that stocking. Can be big, small, childlike or grown-up, whatever most appeals to you. Then buy yourself a good selection of treats, gifts and joy-making things. It will fill that void, and as you're buying the things yourself there will be absolutely no waste since you know what you'd like.

Do it this year, as you go about buying presents for everyone else.

Next year, starting in January, buy one or two things monthly. Wrap as you go, then store in a specific box/drawer/whatever. When Christmas rolls around you will likely have forgotten what's in the little packages and your stocking will be full of fun surprises. 🎄

For various reasons I dislike birthdays and Christmas.

We had a pillowcase of presents when we were small. Thank the lord for the kays catalogue.

😂

My parents used to save the unwanted cracker gifts from my dad’s work Christmas do a few weeks before Christmas and add them to our stockings. An excellent and economical use of pointless cheap tat, particularly as the actual purpose of the stockings was to occupy the children on Christmas morning so my parents could get a lie in and get Christmas dinner on before the main more formal present opening later in the morning.

They're only full of "pointless cheap tat" if that's what the person who fills them puts in them 😂
It doesn't actually magically appear.

I know it’s not the same, but I always do my own stocking

Not necessarily.
My dc had a stocking and a sack, my dsil had lovely gifts but had never had a separate stocking until he had Christmas at our house.
I make each new dgc a reversible stocking with a childish pattern one side and something more sophisticated on the other so it will last them forever.

I never had a stocking because it wasn't a thing in our family. I'm still not entirely sure what the point of them is and they seem to be mostly filled with pointless cheap tat. All my presents were under the tree and I never felt hard done by.

You could get your dc to fill a large sock for you.
As a dc we had a sock instead of a stocking and a pillowcase instead of a sack.
That was in the 60’s.
I look back with nostalgia to that sock which had an orange, an apple, a handful of nuts ( which mum ate because we didn’t want them), a new handkerchief and perhaps one small gift.
Then we had about 4/5 wrapped gifts plus a selection box.

One year my main gift was an Etch a Sketch and I loved it.

I don’t think dc have such good Christmases now, It’s just all too much.

I think you've missed the point a bit. A pillow case full of presents amounts to the same as a stocking. I always had a pillow case as a child but it was always called a Christmas stocking. The OP means she has never had anything remotely like either of them in her entire life.

I'm so sad for you OP. I think you definitely deserve a stocking of your own.

Suggest it to your adults kids and/or husband and if they don't take up the reins then do it for yourself. It's not the same but you'll find if you start early buying little treats and wrapping them, you'll forget what some if them are until you open them.

My husband and I have always done one for each other. It's a really lovely start to Christmas day, opening our little gifts over breakfast. We save our main presents under the tree until a bit later.

Your husband should deffo do one for you, we do each others'. A stocking doesn't have to be plastic tat, we go mostly for consumables (chocs, bottle of beer/fizz, nuts, coffee beans, fancy mustard etc) or kind of boring but always needed stuff (travel size deo, thermal socks, makeup, car air freshener) so it's not just rubbish. My kids get more plastic tat than we do though.

We all do stockings as a family in the morning, and growing up my mum did one for whoever was at ours, so grandparents, stray friends etc. I hope you get involved OP!