Please explain what I do with Christmas stockings as I’d like to start the tradition

[Confusedstocking]

I often see chats about them but don’t understand. As a child I’d be given a shop bought netty stocking with chocolate bars held in place, as the backing was cardboard with a puzzle. Asking DH AND HE SAID they just got an orange or something in theirs. Showing our age!

I made stockings years ago but just hang them up. Not much room in them but what do people do? Buy little presents, wrap them up individually and stuff them in the stockings to be opened before the main presents or are they left on the ends of beds or door handles? Please explain to someone who really doesn’t know and in pictures only sees them hung at fireplaces but wants to build Christmassy family traditions. TIA

I hope someone does one for @Lifeinlists soon.

I do them for teen dc, DH and MIL who also had never had one until she stayed over at Xmas with us.

Whatever stocking you buy get 2.
So you can swop easily and pop it at the bottom of bed near a foot.
Or next to them... So they can wake to the feeling and crackle of the loaded stocking...

All presents from the fc here, small gifts from us and whoever else gives them to gifts gives them gifts.

My favourite memories of Christmas as a child are the ones opening stockings with my sisters. We would all pile onto the eldest sisters bed (she was lucky and had a double!) and open them together whilst our mum and dad slept. If we were up too early we would kill some time eating our chocolates and watching Carry On films on video.
The gifts were always a good mix, my dad was the absolute best at finding the most bizarre little gadgets and games.
Kept up the tradition with my own children except they wake each other up and immediately come in and wake us up too!

Ah thank you Can I come round to your house this Christmas? Lol

I have dropped heavy hints from time to time and DH went as far as getting me a stocking - but put nothing in it! What can you do?! I'd have to talk him through every flippin detail anyway.

I get vicarious pleasure doing them for my now adult DC. When I suggested stopping they were horrified.

We put family presents under the tree. On Christmas Eve the dc put a sack (for the “proper” gifts) and a stocking at the end of the bed. Santa fills these while they sleep, (pre-fill an identical stocking and sack and swap them) and they are brought to our room and opened together as soon as they wake. We then have coffee and wake up before doing our gifts each other by the tree.
All gifts are wrapped. Stockings always have chocolate coins, an orange and a satsuma in the toe. Other stocking gifts (depending on age) can include bubbles, hair bobbles, fidget toys, astronaut pen, paperback book, sweets, make up, novelty socks, small lego set, rubber duck, bath bombs, magic Christmas tree, book mark, cuddly toy, hot chocolate…. Basically little treats or novelties that they’ll use, the sort of thing you might pick up from the shops to cheer them up on a normal day.

I've never had one in my life, we just had a pillowcase down stairs.

My understanding is that most people do them to keep their children in their rooms (if not in bed) for a bit longer, so something that will keep the child quiet, chocolate, a book or a small quiet toy.

When my brother's children were little I think they had stockings when they woke up, santa visited and left the main toys / gifts in the dining room that was locked until after church.

Always enjoy reading different stocking traditions. Everyone waking up here gets one including adults and pets.
Ours are knitted and a bit stretchy, co-ordinating not matching. We hang them on the mantle downstairs. I’d say they are medium sized and Father Christmas stuffs them full to bursting. He follows a sort of formula so we all get the same but different (age and interest appropriate) except the dog who mostly gets toys and snacks. Gifts are wrapped in coloured tissue and a different printed paper for each person/dog. The gifts are a mixture of more expensive items and lower priced. Majority are consumable, useable or doable nowdays. Always orange at the toe, coins and nuts. Socks at the heel and a tube of something in the leg. Sticking out the top chocolate Santa, sugar mouse and candy cane or lollipop. We also have either a mini musical instrument each for impromptu songs or a wind up figure to race (reused and rotated other years).
We open them round the lounge tree whilst eating breakfast. During the magical years there was also a small overflow sack or pile of wrapped presents in the kitchen diner that wouldn’t fit in the stocking things like an annual, craft supplies, games that were to be opened in a frenzy of excitement whilst breakfast was gathered.

I like the idea of opening the labelled gifts from family and friends under the tree later in the day, it’s not practical for us as we have guests arriving from mid morning onwards so we open those and the ones to/from each other after stockings.

In our house, stockings go on the end of the bed, and are opened upstairs before going down for main presents. The have 2-3 small gifts, things like a bath duck or packs of stickers. These are usually wrapped up. They also have sweets, I usually get one pack of retro sweets (lollies, refresher bars, love hearts) and one of celebrations, then split them between stockings. I still put some fruit it, it's ment to be an orange but DC prefer apples, so I usually do that, or both if I have a bit of space to fill.

The way my parents did it and the way I do it with my kids is they both have a personalised stocking and on Christmas Eve they lay it at the bottom of their bed and Father Christmas fills it with fruit and a carton of juice (to keep them quiet until at least 6am!) and also little knick knacks (I don’t wrap them.) I’ve attached a picture of the one I did for DS last year (he was 7) I never spend more than about £20. This is from FC and then all the bigger gifts to unwrap are downstairs and they know they are from us.

Said picture attached!

Filling DS's stocking and then watching him rummage through it is one of my favourite parts of Christmas. He was absolutely flabbergasted the first Christmas morning he was old enough to realise what had happened, when he saw his stocking was now bulging. Amongst the haze and stress of parenting a difficult toddler, I'll never forget that moment as this tiny excited kid dragged his stocking from his bedroom yelling for his daddy to come see.

I also love the fun of sneaking into his room to grab the empty stocking and then quietly putting it back without waking DS. I've usually got a few glasses of wine in me at that point as well. However I applaud the people who have the idea to get a matching stocking!

We have a stocking each and the tradition is to hang them on our bedroom doors (they used to be at the bottom of the bed but that got more and more difficult as our ds grew up)

The stockings are shop bought ones (as a child it was one of my dads socks)

They are filled with fun things, practical things, sweets, chocolate etc mostly items that cost a few pounds. When the ds were younger I would try and put things to keep them busy until everyone was awake.

The stockings are the only thing from Father Christmas and wrapped in different paper

There always is a tube of smarties and a candy cane

When I was growing up I always had a satsuma and nuts

Stockings are allowed to be opened as soon as they wake up

Oh yes and my DM supplies everything for my stocking and I am 50!

Stockings go on the end of the bed in our house. Filled with little presents. Once we get past about now my poor kids get told to wait for Santa whenever they need a new toothbrush or socks. I wrap everything in different paper to their siblings. There's always chocolate coins and a mandarin. Some fun stuff, mostly daft stuff. I always give them a Christmas tree decoration and over the years they have built up a wee collection for when they have their own trees. Watching them open their stockings all squashed in bed together is still a highlight even now they're grown.

@dressedforcomfort : Stocking were one of my favourite bit of Christmas as a kid. There is something absolutely magical about waking up in the dark and feeling the weight of a stocking at the bottom of the bed.

This sums up my experience, too, and what we do for our boys. We stuff things into DH’s biggest walking socks - it’s amazing how far they can stretch, and as a PP said, the lumpy, misshapen filled sock has a special intrigue somehow.

(Said ‘boys’ are 18 and 21 this year, and again, as other PPs have said, it’s very much still part of Christmas. So whatever you start, make it something you can continue. It will very quickly become your family’s tradition.)

Stockings - receiving and filling them - are one of the best bits of Christmas. As kids we had cloth ones made by my mum with our names on, nothing fancy. I think it was a roll of some sort of hessian and she did the names with glue and glitter. I still have mine.

Always hung on the end of the bed, and oh, the excitement of waking up and nudging it and hearing it crackle - "He's been!" I shared a room with two sisters, they were much older and would not have believed by then but no doubt were under strong threats from our mum not to spoil it for me. Stocking presents were from Father Christmas, and were always wrapped. It was when my mum's system broke down one year and the wrapping paper was the same as some used on the main presents that I realised who was really filling the stocking! Always a satsuma and a shiny penny in the toe.

We went on having stockings until we left home. The responsibility was supposed to pass to spouses, but due to some unsatisfactory husbands 😁 my sisters and I still do stockings for each other. We are now in our sixties/early seventies. I usually spend Christmas with one sister and we wait for her daughters to arrive and open them all together. There's usually some chocolate, a second hand book, travel-size toiletries, some gloves or socks and a bit of Christmas tat - light-up brooches or ear rings, a really naff ornament or similar. I've been saving up stocking stuff for a few weeks now. DSis2 is getting a rare and irreplaceable bar of Caramac!

I love looking for small but useful items to add to the stocking stuff, it's much more fun than buying main presents. Make your own traditions, and have fun with them, don't make it hard work for yourself. I'm pretty sure my mum would have adopted some of these ideas if she were around now

We use stockings for our DDs, they are 22 now. It’s always been age appropriate things plus a chocolate Santa and a clementine.

The least few years it’s been Lipsalve of their choice, hair clips and bands for ponytails and things like a posh lipstick or nail polish. This year it’s socks, washable makeup remover pads, coffee pods and the aforementioned hair bits and Lipsalve.

When I was as little we had my uncles fishing socks and they had a coin at the bottom, then tangerine then various sweets. We never got selection boxes, so the stocking was the sweets. In the morning we’d take it from the bottom of the bed through to mums bed and open it up to show her what Santa brought us. (Santa also left an annual like twinkle, maybe a new jumper or small teddy and the bigger present)

when DH and I got together I made sure we still had stockings from Santa! We had a shop bought decorative stocking with a coin, tangerine and sweets - but I make the sweets a little more unusual now that I make stockings for the family. So perhaps something I see in whittard or Lakeland or a “fancier” chocolate than cadburys (which is pretty much anything but I just try to do different things as it IS coming from the North Pole)

I do little presents in stockings too, but just hand cream, cuticle oil or pretty nail file, or cuff links, Molton brown shower gel bauble (they used to always be on a deal!) or small/travel aftershave. I do wrap stocking presents in red and white striped tissue paper snd wrap it in a bow. Tissue paper can be rolled around a little present and I tape up the edges badly. A wide ribbon on a small present essentially covers it and I think it looks cute - ribbons are reused yearly.

It's your DHs house too. I'd do it whatever way his family did it.

Growing up it was an actual sock, girls white sock (lovely). Hung up before bed on Christmas Eve, filled with a coin 10p maybe 50p, fancy pencils, rubbers, something small like a yoyo or bubbles, tangerine, hair bobbles Santa didn't need much to fill a girls sock. 😀

My mum wasn't being that bright when she purchased Christmas Stockings that are about 2 foot long.
So I end up filling them with pants, socks, maybe a tiny lego set, comic, pencils etc.

In my head Stockings are a bit of fun, shouldn't have anything too pricy in them.

It’s great reading all the replies and it’s given me little hamper ideas for folk who never want anything but cash now. DH family stockings sound very flat compared to the ideas I now have, wanting to give little surprises and hear sounds of delight.

They were my favourite part of Christmas as a child, are my favourite as a parent and are my daughter’s too. My three don’t have big ones, so they fill up fairly easily, but they are full of little things you see here and there you know they will like, always a sweet, a fun bath bomb and a cute Christmas decoration and then this year across my three some of the things are a top trump set from a game one likes, a little magnet set for one of their desks, a Rubik’s cube, some cool pins for a jacket. Anything goes really. I always loved them as a child (and into my mid-30’s!) because they were smaller but thoughtful things my mum had seen and thought of me. We let them open them asap on waking up and the contents usually keep them going until we can have some breakfast and coffee!