To ask if we are the ONLY family who have NEVER done Xmas stockings

[StevieBud]

Every year on MN I see all these threads asking for suggestions for stuff to put into stockings and people reply suggesting all kinds of tat.

Or boring stuff like new toothbrushes.

Presents should be under the tree, opened at dawn before consuming a box of Matchmakers.

Pressed send too soon

Stockings are a boring waste of time - just get on with the main event!

Our family never had stockings as children. I remember thinking they were only something out of story books. I now do good quality non-tat stockings for my children and DH does one for me. I love a stocking now!

We never did them growing up. I thought it was an old-timey thing from storybooks. I was well into my teens before realising people actually had them!

I always make one for my cat but she doesn't often have a "big" present.
If I am at my sisters, she has a number of small presents that I'll have picked up during the year - puzzle books, sweets, any thing I see I think she'd like, but I don't always put them in a stocking.

We never had stockings and so neither do my children. I don't really understand them, they have completely passed me by.

I do remember my Dad telling me he had a stocking as a child and it contained an orange and a piece of coal. That probably put me off.

as children we had pillow cases rather than stockings (but we referred to them as stockings)

Love a stocking. Just little bits and bob's.

Oh god, stockings can be the best bit!

Stockings are the absolute best bit of Christmas for me. I love doing them for DC and DH and DH does me a fab one too.

I always make one for my cat but she doesn't often have a "big" present

I'll let you off.

We had pillowcases as children and that's what I've always done for my own family. You can get much more in a pillowcase than in a stocking. I don't really get stockings, tbh.

No we never had them either that I remember.

We used to have sacks of presents downstairs around the tree and would wake our parents up at 4am and run downstairs to dig in a soon as possible!

I had a few friends who said their tradition on christmas morning was to sit in bed on their own and open their stocking when they woke up really early, then at what their parents deemed a reasonable time they were allowed to get up for the day and open a couple (but not all) of their presents before christmas dinner and it just all sounded so sad.

Everyone in this house loves their stockings! And we don't fill them with tat - It's not compulsory to do that.

My son’s stocking isn’t filled with tat. I hate loads of pointless junk. I also don’t put in toothbrushes or anything like that. A toothbrush or underwear etc are basics things I supply as a parent, not give him as a gift.

We didn’t have them as kids either and I haven’t yet done them for the kids. I’m nervous of how much additional expense they create ... and the headache of more and more random stuff. Watching for ideas!

Never had it as a child. Only did it for a few years when kids were little because my husband did. But stopped when my kids were 6 and 8 I think. Just a load of tat really.

Crikey Stockings are the best bit. They only contain ‘tat’ if you put tat in you know

Stockings are one of the best things at Xmas you are missing out

Stockings are the best bit!

How do you give things like selection boxes or chocolate coins otherwise? Wrapping them is a waste of time and paper and would be disappointing after the effort of unwrapping.

A stocking is perfect. Christmas chocolates or little bits that they want or need all together in a sack of loveliness!

But I wrap everything! Even selection boxes!

Anyway, how do you get a selection box into a stocking?

I never had stockings as a child, and DH always had them full of tat. We’ve compromised by having stockings for the kids, but they just hold any smaller presents we would have bought anyway that fit in them.

Like a pp we use pillow cases rather than a stocking. They were lovingly embroidered by a great aunt with the DC’s names on.

Can defo get a selection box in them!

I loved the Christmas stocking when I was a kid but it was a real sock borrowed from my father and then nailed to the end of my bed, I loved the ritual of going through all his socks to pick one (the biggest of course), I did the same with my son who is now 28, he even had the same ritual with my father because we lived with my parents until my son was 12, my niece and nephew (9 & 11) have a stocking from Santa in my parents every year, it hangs from the mantelpiece but we no longer use my fathers socks, they look forward to this bit of the celebration every year.

You wake up on the most magical day of the year... there's a fat stuffed lumpy stocking/sack on your bed, full of promise.

You feel inside it.. draw out every silly thing one at a time... wondrous things... things your sensible parents would never have thought of getting you.. ... and there's CHOCOLATE COINS. For BREAKFAST.

The household gradually awakes. You show your stocking and its amazing contents to your siblings, your parents, anyone around the house, and you play with the bits Santa brought and you swap and squabble and all the fun is still to come, everyone excited and full of joy and anticipation (or champagne!). Then there's dinner, with turkey, and crackers and still there are...

...THE PRESENTS, still under the tree.

That's how it's always worked in our house. Keep the magic going past lunch and its adult-only pleasures. As long as possible!

In our house stockings are filled by Santa and presents under the tree are from family. The shocking can be opened whenever they wake up. It usually contains something to read, something to wear, something to play with and something to eat. When they were little I'd put junkie breakfast cereal in so we could get a bit of a sleep in. I wasn't going to do them this year as my kids are grown up but they protested that stockings were the best bit.