The Stockings Were Hung

To the banquet of real presents which was waiting downstairs...the stocking toys...were only an aperitif; but they had a special and exciting quality of their own. Perhaps it was the atmosphere in which they were opened--the chill, the black windowpanes, the unfamiliar hour.

Jan Struther in Mrs Minerva

It always surprised me to see how our children loved exploring the contents of their stockings, considering that all the real loot was waiting for them under the Christmas tree.

One of my treasured memories that I pull out with sloppy sentimentality is of the Christmas when our firstborn had recently turned three. He brought his red felt stocking that his great-aunt Etta had made him to our bed while it was still dark outside, his little sister still asleep at a year and a half. He was trembling with excitement.

Ever so seriously he said, "San-Santa brought me a re-red truck." To this day I still see his flushed little face and his thick dark eyelashes fluttering as he held out the cheap plastic red truck in his chubby little hand. He held it up as if it was the Koh-i-noor diamond.

Mercy! At that moment I understood exactly how the Grinch felt after his transformation because I felt as if my heart was going to burst with joy.

Perhaps it was this memory that used to motivate me to put as much thought into guiding Santa with his stocking stuffers as with the "important" gifts under the tree.

As Mrs. Minerva understood, Christmas is "one of the moments...which paid off at a single stroke, all the accumulations on the debit side of parenthood."

When I was a high school senior, I told my mother that I wanted to help her and my father "play Santa" to my younger sisters. Mama turned a deaf ear to me and did not let me stay up to help on Christmas Eve.

When RH and I had our own children, I understood why Mama hadn't let me help her and Daddy. I was attempting to poach on staked and claimed rights, private property. 

Because on Christmas morning, after twelve months of parenting, comes one of the most rewarding times of the year, seeing the joy in your children's faces as they find what Santa Claus has left them. 

It's been quite a few years since RH and I helped Santa stuff stockings on Christmas Eve. 

But we have all those wonderful memories, beginning with when a little blonde haired boy in his yellow flannel Dr. Denton-footed pajamas climbed into bed with us and said:

"San-Santa brought me a re-red truck."

Merry Christmas, everyone!