I don't understand the Stockings that everyone talks about, please explain!

[notso]

My DC put out a christmas sack with the mince pie, carrot and Baileys for Father Christmas near the fire and 'he' fills it with presents some from their lists and some small surprises.

We don't get them anything and presents from family go under the tree to be opened after dinner or on boxing day.

This is what happened for me and DH.

When would a stocking make an appearance?

This is purely nosey, oldest DC is 13 so too late to start a new tradition I think.

iheart, they will still get the presents and the stocking, but we are just not going to say that they are from santa - one is in High School and the other P7 - they must know surely? I really don't want to have the conversation so I have been asking them what they want for Christmas - reminded them there is a credit crunch and I have not mentioned Santa at all. I just don't want it to be a big shock on Christmas Morning - we are definitely not doing presents for presents sake this year (apart from some things in the stocking) we will spend much the same as usual but on big things that they have asked for an not all the extras to make it look like a lot. I am sure they would rather have a £40 computer game from their list rather than £40 worth of stuff that they play a bit with on Christmas and then ignore. Just worried that it might be an anti climax after the younger years of a whole sofa filled with toys.

We have stockings purely as a decorative item on the fireplace.. Never really considered filling them.

As a kid 'Santa' would leave the presents in the front room.. Mum would buy them plastic sacks and put our names on them, that really was it. I'm intrigued by the end of bed thing, I never slept on Christmas eve as a kid so would have been devastated if my mum walked in to put the presents there!! Also part of the fun was creeping downstairs all like 'has he been? Has he been?' and then walking into a room full of pressies. I'm confused how it works if you have multiple kids and thus multiple bedrooms, do they open their stockings alone when they wake up?

Now with our DCs they each have a red velour stocking their name on which gets put out on Christmas eve with the reindeer food/mince pie and milk.. Much like you really.

*sorry I said red velour stocking but meant sack

re the "do they open them alone" thing, usually not in our house - when they were small they'd bring them through to our bed and we'd take turns of sitting with them while the other got washed etc. Now they just go into one of the rooms and open them together while we sleep :) Having said that my two spend more time sharing a room than sleeping in their own - it's like musical beds in our house - once went to bed to find my two boys (5'4" and 5'2" so not little).....and the cat all squeezed in the bottom bunk in one room!!

In our house Santa fills the sticking with small gifts, sweets/chocolate etc then brings big toys as well. He leaves these in the lounge. One small present each off me and DH wrapped under the tree. I don't need credit for the presents just to see their happy little faces that a wonderful magic man left them gifts is more than enough and I can convince them I have no money so they can't badger me for anything at any other point during the year

Here, they bring their stockings in and open them on our bed (this year DH and I are getting stockings too!) - I wouldn't want to miss seeing their faces light up as they open each item :o

This might be the year of the stocking then!
I don't think I will tell them, I'll just hang the filled stockings on the door handles this year.
DS2 and 3 won't know any different, DD won't mind, DS1 8 might be a bit not sure if he believes or not I know some of his peers don't, but he should still enjoy it.

notso - great idea. We all have stockings in our house. DH does mine and I do them for him the DC and my 79 year old mother. You are never too old for a stocking.
The DC come and open them on our bed (my mum opens hers in her own bed, sometimes with assistance from DC). Mum is getting payback now for having to do stockings for me and my sibs until we were fully in our twenties.

Aww that's lovely Themumsnot. I gave my mum Christmas eve jimjams last year, we had a lovely warm and fuzzy moment.

Thanks all for letting me be nosey!

I'm in the middle of knitting one for baby ds. Now worried dh had Ben intending to have a sack instead. My plan (for now we will hang it by the fire place, the plan is for when he's older):

He hands it up at the end of his bed on Christmas Eve
We full it with little presents in the night (soft toys, cars, things to pay with in the car whenwe go to visit family, socks, edible treats, a satsuma)
He comes in to us when he wakes up and find it full
He opens his little presents with us whilst we doze watch
More presents from Santa under the tree but something from us too

And everyone knows the elves make all the presents from Santa.

Only stockings in this house are from Father Christmas. All other presents from us and DS knows this. FC isn't getting all the credit!

We didn't do Santa all presents were from relatives and sneaked under the tree on Xmas eve. We were fairly broke and my mum considered stocking junk a waste of money.

I love the wow on Christmas morning of seeing all the presents. I find it very odd visiting friends who put relatives gifts under the tree in the days before.

DH was very much brought up to the whole Santa thing and he and his sister hung long socks on their beds.

He said it was a very long time later that he realised his mum had the pair to each of their stockings and that "Santa" didn't fill them quietly they were merely swapped.

Once he went to University he and his sister started doing stockings for his parents and they have done them for me too, which was lovely.

My two have stockings, but they just get any small thing that will fit put in them.

Santa used to bring one big thing each and sometimes silly things Mum "refused" to get.

In our house its a pillow case downstairs which Santa fills but nobody is allowed to go down alone.

even at 16 yrs our older 5 children were still getting up at 5 am to see what he brought.He stops putting presents in your pillow case at 18 but the pressie is still a surprise ( oldest 24)
we never lied just that" if you don't believe Santa does,nt come " which is true!

Just as well as we had a surprise arrival of triplets after 12 years and we are getting the excitement and magic all again!! :) :)

I remember one year he brought high heeled boots to my teen.....the cheek of it when I expressly refused to buy them for her. ;)

I'm relieved there are others who don't do stockings! I have always been made to feel like a bit of a meanie but neither DH nor I had them as kids, just piles of presents so that's what we've carried on with.

It's not all big presents, we do smaller stuff too but just chuck it on on the main pile.

Santa brings everything that's from us. Presents from friends and family stay presents from friends and family. Presents from one set of friends traditionally go at the end of the bed to open first thing.

We all have stockings in our house even though our children are adults apart from dd. Father Christmas fills the stockings with small, fun and practical gifts. We hang our stockings on the back of the dining chairs and leave Father Christmas milk and cookies on the table.All other presents are from the people who bought them and are left overnight under the tree.
Ours open their stockings at the table after Christmas lunch a tradition that started when the eldest were toddlers in an effort to get them to sit and eat at the table.Now they don't want to open them at a different time.
Ours love the stocking best even if they are filled with inexpensive tat.

Stockings (big felt things personalised by my DM) are hung on fireplace on Xmas eve and magically appear full at end of bed on Xmas morning with (wrapped) toys, chocolate coins, satsuma, novelty socks, bath bombs, maybe a cheap book or DVD, perhaps a Beano annual on a 2 for 1 deal. I pick stuff up that seems fun and good value over the year - including some stuff from charity shops (DD will get Steven Fry reading Harry Potter, courtesy of Barnadoes).

They normally open them together then come and jump on us to share the excitement of what Santa has got them. All other presents come properly attributed to human donors.

Once all the adults are awake and caffeinated we open one large family present each, and that's it until after lunch (we guide each child to the present with the most play value).

As a child, we had pillowcases (just a random clean one out of the linen closet) which we put at the end of the bed and would wake up to find Father Christmas had been.

It was very exciting when you finally woke up to see the bulging presents - they were mainly small silly type toys, with a couple of practical things like pants, a selection box and always a satsuma.

Father Christmas also brought a selection of random gifts under the tree (a couple of 'family gifts' such as a new board game, big keyboard or something else). All the other presents just came from mum & dad or relatives - so we could knew who gave them and could write thank-you cards).

My mum would also put the presents out bit by bit, so the pile slowly grew, then most were added on Christmas Eve.

With our DD1 (4) we got her a nice red sack (an upgraded version of the pillowcase), which we get her to leave by the fireplace with a snack for santa/rudolph. I do like to put slightly better presents in that will actually get used, craft stuff, stickers, puzzles aswell as a few cheapy gimmicky things and some sweets (the sack is easier to fill than a stocking). DD2 is a baby and will get a "babys 1st christmas" small stocking this year and for next year I will need to find a similar red sack for her or get them something the same.

In addition to the stocking we buy DD1 a few biggish presents for under the tree and allocate 1 or 2 from Santa (sadly not Father Christmas where we live), this year she has asked for the Elefun game from Santa so that will be from him and maybe one other thing. Her main present of Playmobil will be from us.

When they are older we will probably leave the 'stocking' presents outside their door (not brave enough to attempt end of the bed!) so they can open them together first thing, like me and my brother used to.

We all have new jamas on Christmas Eve-dc put them on after bath and then hang stockings from mantelpiece.They leave Santa a pice of Christmas cake [first slice cut] and a glass of something alcoholic .They also leave a carrot for the reindeer.
Santa leaves the stockings at the foot of the bed and presents round the tree.
Stockings can be opened on waking but no one goes downstairs until 7.30.
One present opened then breakfast then rest of presents handed out till every one has a heap after which there is a free for all of opening with adults feilding labels for future reference.

My dc are now adult but I [santamum] still fill stockings a total of 17 including dh-who does one for me :)
I love it.

I still have a stocking and a pillow case.

I'm 34.

My DC have sacks (plain pillowcases they decorated about 5 years ago) which are put at the end of the bed, filled with some smaller bits from their santa lists and other bits that i've picked up to fill it out. They open them in our bed in the morning. We then go downstairs and under the tree are some of the other things requested from Santa and our presents. Family members often will buy presents for the DC from their Xmas lists to help santa out!

It tends to be a big thing from Santa, and a big thing from us.

Stockings ar the traditional preseent receptacle, we just use sacks cos they are bigger and you can fit more in, which is handy cos one of my favourite past times is buying stocking fillers!

Oh, and in our house it's usually me that has to pace up and down the landing nervously listening out for any noises before I go in, and then tiptoeing in - it's my most stressful moment of the year, not helped by DP laughing from the bedroom having consumed santas alcoholic beverage greedy lazy bastard

I would love to leave the boys' Christmas sacks on the end if their beds (I remember the magical feeling of the filled stocking on my toes when I was a child) but my two get up for a pee at random times and could not be trusted not to tear into them at 3am! Plus nannie stays on Christmas eve so I always do a stocking for her too. Invariably we end up downstairs at sparrow's fart opening the sacks/stockings. Under tree presents wait until we are all dressed and guests have arrived.