Filling the stocking without waking them!

[NCcoziwannaNC]

Last yr the then 9 year old. Stayed awake until 4am! Every time we tried to sneak in they sat up!

I tried to suggest leaving the stocking on the fireplace or by bedroom door. But that's a big no go.

They're personalised so cant do the swap for a pre filled one :/

We always had stockings at the end of the bed. Stockings on the fireplace wasn’t a thing when we were kids, I just thought that’s what they did in America (from watching films) but here was always at the end of the bed.

Mind you I didn’t know anyone growing up that actually had a fireplace that you could hang stockings on. Doesn’t have the same effect on an 80s wall mounted gas fire!!

When mine were young did them on the door handle as I was worried about waking them it was easier to grab fill and put back on my way to bed.

if your son was awake till 4am and sitting bolt upright as soon as you went in I agree he was waiting to catch you (or Santa) out!

Most people I know still had coal fires in the 80s, we got gas in 91 and we still had stockings hung on the fireplace...

Who had 'just' a random gas fire? Everyone still puts a surround around it so its no different than a normal fireplace.

It may have been different where you lived but where we lived only the original houses and when the expansion started, the houses built from the 30s up to about the 60s had open fires. The the other half of town built from the 60s onwards had Gas wall mounted fires with no chimneys. They didn’t have a surround or a hearth and anyone that converted the original open fires to wall mounted gas would usually rip out the whole thing and put a wall mounted fire on instead, very rarely would they keep the fireplace.
so yes it was perfectly normal to not have a fireplace in the half of town that I and all my friends grew up in. The only people I knew with an open fire were my great grandparents whose house on the old part of town was built in the 30s.

The fire had a wooden outer and top which you could utilise as a shelf. So I guess a makeshift mantelpiece.

Gas Fireplaces these days are designed to have surround so you’re right nobody now would have a random fire stuck to the wall as they are built in.

But Im not talking about those I’m specifically talking about the ones of the 70s and 80s.

Most “modern” houses from the 70s, 80s at least did not have any sort of fireplace or surround, surely. There was no chimney breast at all, not even a fake one. The gas fire, if there was one, was just on a wall. But most houses had nothing - just central heating radiators. The houses I grew up in were like this. My grandparents had a 50s house and that did have fireplaces, ( eventually with a gas fire in) which were a novelty to us children.

Yes I know whats yous are on about and those gas fires started in the new builds in the 60s (DH house was one) but people still commonly put surrounds around them, I have never seen just a random bare one just stuck on a wall with nothing around it... the chimney breast not being there has nothing to do with nothing.

We had this wood one growing up although as I said we got ours in the 90s the brick type ones (like this) or tiled one (like this) where most common in houses that had them earlier (still see them regularly in cheap un-updated do-er up 60s/70s houses).

I know what you mean by a surround, but what I’m thinking of didn’t have a surround. This is the sort of thing I remember - fire installed against a wall, no surround:

Yes, we had one exactly like that in our 60s built house @Greytea . Then we moved to a 70s built house that had a similar one, again mounted on a flat wall, no surround or mantelpiece. My parents are still in that house and now have a fake chimney breast with a flame effect gas fire set into a recess in it but still no surround, and at my ILs they have an electric flame effect one mounted into the chimney breast and that has no surround either. Nowhere to pin a stocking above any of them.

Hang one up.

Fill identical one.

Switch when asleep.

Thought this was standard!

Nothing helpful to offer, sorry.

Brings back fond memories of being a Christmas eve ninja.

Remember my son waking up and doing a sudden drop to the floor, that only a power ranger could pull off.

Miss those days.

Long walk, swimming or ice skating on Christmas Eve and tire the little beggars out.

This has always been my tactic

With the multiple stocking strategy I cannot stress the importance of them being kept in separate places. Otherwise little hands in the decorations box coming across several stockings ...

Got to agree with this, the feeling of waking up to a stocking at the bottom of your bed is the best!! I have continued doing this with my children for exactly that reason. Though I don't show them their stockings prior to Christmas Day, they just turn up filled full of delights in the morning!

I agree.. we’ve always grown up with stocking on the bed... I think it’s because I grew up in a flat so and no fireplace only radiators. We don’t have a fireplace even now in a house.

Letter from Santa the week before asking for stockings to be left downstairs? It could say that he wasn’t happy that they kept waking up last year!

Stockings in the living room. Problem solved.

First year I did stockings I put them in the hallway outside the DCs room and it was so lovely and easy :)

Last year I put them at the foot of their beds.... Eldest DC (6) was constantly darting awake and some everyone up at 4am..... Never again!

Woke everyone, that should say.

Under the Christmas tree. Was great when the eldest was old enough to be innob it and kept the younger ones occupied when I had to move stuff downstairs though

Isn't this what 70/80's fire places looked like?. We had one practically identical to this one that our shockings were hung on.

That's missing the magic. The tradition is you place an empty stocking/sack and mincepie for Father Christmas before going to bed and then the wonder is seeing that it's been filled in the morning.

I know you have said that the stockings are personalised but could you still do the swap for a different stocking? Maybe a note from Santa saying due to covid restrictions he has to use new stockings.

Actually you could just leave the old stockings in place and just put a new one on top.

Or how about putting a couple of hooks for them to leave their stockings, you could still sneak them in later.

It's a lovely idea for kids to wake up with stockings in their bedroom, but in my experience causes so much stress!

When my nephews were little my sister used to this and it was a nightmare trying to work out when they were asleep and we could go in! So tense to think you could destroy the whole Christmas magic if they woke up!

So I would do it downstairs, I never had them in my bedroom as a kid, parents never gave any explanation for this and it didn't occur to me that it should be in my bedroom! It was always downstairs (and we didn't have a fireplace - just hung wherever).

As a child ours always went by the fireplace, along the the mince pie, carrot and glass of Scotch.

For me the excitement of Christmas morning was sneaking downstairs with my brother while my parents were still sleeping, collecting our stockings, marvelling at the mince pie crumbs and half eaten carrot, and having a peek through the door of the room which had presents rounds the tree. It was all unbearably exciting!

Then we’d scurry back upstairs with the stockings to open them together in bed. my kids have the same routine now - and it makes stocking filling much easier.

This.