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Original poster

Does anyone not 'do' stockings?

107 replies

Stressfordays · 19/12/2022 14:40

I'm wondering if I'm the strange one but we've never done stockings? No one I know does them either? Presents get wrapped and put under the tree. I didn't have them as a kid and my parents didn't either. We call the cheaper bits you buy stocking fillers but don't actually put them in a stocking. Am I doing Christmas wrong? 🤣

OP posts:
MiddleParking · 19/12/2022 14:42

We never had them either and nor do my kids. Everything under the tree.

stealthninjamum · 19/12/2022 14:42

We don’t but Santa still leaves presents (even though dc are too old to believe in him) so he buys those ‘stocking filler’ type gifts.

stealthninjamum · 19/12/2022 14:43

Santa leaves these gifts in a pile outside their bedroom door and dc bring them to my room to open them.

Hugasauras · 19/12/2022 14:43

My husband's family never did and he was baffled the first time I made him one Grin Everyone has their own way of doing things so of course you aren't doing anything wrong, but personally as a kid stockings were one of the best bits and I absolutely love doing stockings for DD1. But every family has their own traditions!

BlackLambAndGreyFalcon · 19/12/2022 14:45

I do a stocking on 6th December (St. Nikolaus). Christmas day presents are just under the tree. But then I don't really "do" Father Christmas/Santa Claus either.

RagingWoke · 19/12/2022 15:01

I never had one as a child. Nor did we do gifts under the tree.
Me and db would come downstairs on Christmas morning to our gifts set out in the sitting room. None were seen before then.

My dh always had a stocking though and our dc have one... mostly because it buys me an extra hour or so of dozing time while they play with/eat whatever is in the stockings. You do what you need to when they're trying to get up at 5am.

mam0918 · 19/12/2022 15:02

We do them now but neither me nor DH had them as kids (well we did but they where decoration more than anything, hung by the fire and sometimes filled with nuts and fruit if my mam remembered but not toys etc...) so its something I started for my children.

I find mumsnet obsession with Stocking quite funny especially how some people get furious over other people doing them differently and just how many 'variations' there are. Seems so silly to argue blue in the face over wrapped vs unwrapped, fireplace vs door vs bed, sock vs sack etc... as if any deviance from your own is evil in carnate lol.

I also find it funny how many here say 'Xmas eve boxes are modern comercial tat, its just the stuff that belongs in a Stocking' because growing up I didnt know anyone who had Stockings but we all had Xmas eve boxes (well they weren't physically boxes, it was a tradition of PJs, books and snacks usually left laid out on the bed) so its as crazy as me claiming Stockings are 'modern made up tat because I didnt have them so they must not be real' lol.

mam0918 · 19/12/2022 15:04

RagingWoke · 19/12/2022 15:01

I never had one as a child. Nor did we do gifts under the tree.
Me and db would come downstairs on Christmas morning to our gifts set out in the sitting room. None were seen before then.

My dh always had a stocking though and our dc have one... mostly because it buys me an extra hour or so of dozing time while they play with/eat whatever is in the stockings. You do what you need to when they're trying to get up at 5am.

Thats sound like my childhood, everything laid out on the sofa/chairs.

mam0918 · 19/12/2022 15:07

BlackLambAndGreyFalcon · 19/12/2022 14:45

I do a stocking on 6th December (St. Nikolaus). Christmas day presents are just under the tree. But then I don't really "do" Father Christmas/Santa Claus either.

I wish I had originally thought to do stockings on St. Nick day instead of Xmas day as it make so much more sense logically but my oldest is too use to expecting a xmas stocking to change now.

This is why you should think traditions through with your oldest before just blindly going with it lol.

dementedpixie · 19/12/2022 15:11

We did stockings when the kids were younger but haven't done them for several years now (kids are 16 and 19)

When I was a child we used actual socks which was highly unfair as my 2 big brothers had bigger socks than the 2 younger girls so we got less in ours than they did.

IncompleteSenten · 19/12/2022 15:15

No you're not doing it wrong.
There's no wrong or right, just how you want to do it.

I do do stockings. When the kids were little they were full of crappy tat and every year they got played with far more than the 'proper' gifts but that's kids for you 😁

They are in their 20s now and they each get a giant bar of dairy milk in their stocking and the cat gets a bag of catnip in hers.

notforonesecond · 19/12/2022 16:11

I had one when I was a kid because opening that on my parents bed meant I wouldn’t wake my big brothers up too early.

I like the idea now I have my own kids but if they got up for a wee at 3am and found a stocking upstairs they’d never go back to sleep.

So we do have them but they just act as a different sort of sack in among the presents in sacks/piles down stairs and the names on the sort of mark out whose pile is whose.

Mumsnet is the first time I’ve ever heard of them as being some special, specific thing and I never knew some people say that’s what Santa brings before I read it here. It’s nice really, that there are so many ways of doing things and everyone thinks theirs in the only way.

DorothyCannoli · 19/12/2022 16:19

We never had stockings as children, we waited upstairs until an adult went to check if Santa had been and then went downstairs youngest to oldest to find all our presents in a pile on a chair or sofa where we had left a sack with our name written on the previous evening.
I first had a stocking when I spent my first Xmas with my now inlaws and I loved it. It made me want to do it for my own DC when I heard about how much my DH and his siblings looked forward to their stockings. Its honestly one of my favourite parts of Christmas now. I get so much joy from my DC opening theirs in our bed on Christmas morning.

livingthegoodlife · 19/12/2022 16:32

We have stockings but they are those big shop bought decorative socks. But we don't have stockings fillers! Just whatever small gifts I can shove inside the stocking, not typical "fillers". We don't buy any of the filler novelty type gifts they do get a chocolate orange though! For example, a Barbie fits nicely!

Katela18 · 19/12/2022 16:48

RagingWoke · 19/12/2022 15:01

I never had one as a child. Nor did we do gifts under the tree.
Me and db would come downstairs on Christmas morning to our gifts set out in the sitting room. None were seen before then.

My dh always had a stocking though and our dc have one... mostly because it buys me an extra hour or so of dozing time while they play with/eat whatever is in the stockings. You do what you need to when they're trying to get up at 5am.

We did this too.

There was four of us....no etchings, we each had a pile of gifts under the tree

Katela18 · 19/12/2022 16:48

Katela18 · 19/12/2022 16:48

We did this too.

There was four of us....no etchings, we each had a pile of gifts under the tree

Show quote history

Sorry, should have said no stocking!

CazM2012 · 19/12/2022 16:49

We have physical stockings but don’t buy anything to put in there specifically, when we are setting it out on Xmas Eve we find a few little gifts to put in and done.

SliceOfCakeCupOfTea · 19/12/2022 16:52

We do stockings but they are only for sweeties and chocolates. No presents in there. Literally a couple of tubes of buttons or fruit pastilles, a bag of coins, chocolate Santa and/or chocolate lollies and a chocolate orange. No point in buying presents for stockings imo

Original poster
Stressfordays · 19/12/2022 16:53

I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't do stockings. I'm probably awake earlier then the dc with sheer excitement so don't worry about wanting extra time in bed. I usually do a big pile under the tree then we take one present at a time and watch each other open them so it takes more time (and I can bin the wrapping paper without it going everywhere). I do have a dilemma this year though, I have free roam house rabbits now who love chewing wrapping paper!

OP posts:
Thelmsie · 19/12/2022 16:54

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woodhill · 19/12/2022 16:55

Never done them, used to do pillowcases for dc as did my dps for me

Dreamwhisper · 19/12/2022 17:00

I never had a stocking growing up, we had a Santa sack at the end of our bed which was huge and then presents under the tree. I don't know anyone who grew up having stockings either really!

When I was doing my own Christmas for DCs I bought some stockings because they looked nice, but they were felt ones and could only fit a really small amount in, so we had really generic fillers, a selection box and some of those £1/pocket money toys you pick up from Supermarkets.

The stockings were then upgraded to hand knitted large and stretchy ones and they have proper gifts in them, so they are more akin to a Santa sack but still not large enough for the kind of toys I would get in a Santa sack to fit! We now fill them with all sorts of cool and fun stuff from 60p items to any gifts at all on from their main lists that will fit.

NoNameNowAgain · 19/12/2022 17:06

I think my grandparents had stockings circa 1920 and that was all. My parents didn’t and we didn’t as a regular thing.
It also occurs to me from reading MN that we didn’t really have any sort of official rationale or logical rules about what Santa brought and what he didn’t. Everything appeared in the bedroom on Christmas Day - Some of it with gift tags, but by the time we could read we knew it was all pretend anyway so didn’t worry.
We just leapt up and ripped everything apart at dawn.
I got the impression that everyone has stockings now, but maybe it’s a bit regional.

MysteryBelle · 19/12/2022 17:06

I think it depends on if you grew up with Christmas stories and poems like the Twas the night before Christmas or if you just love the idea of it. We grew up with stockings, orange, walnuts in them. I just love the idea of getting little presents in stockings and the story of Saint Nicholas and the shoes etc. Anything that adds to the excitement I love. Like Christmas crackers, I didn’t grow up with those but I do them every year because it’s fun. It is so fun to fill the stockings.

Topseyt123 · 19/12/2022 17:10

We did stockings (Santa sacks) when the DDs were young but stopped as they turned teenagers and went through secondary school.

Since then its has been all presents under the tree. No right or wrong about it. You do what you like and what suits you.