Gran was a gifted seamstress and was skilled at needlework. After each of her grandchildren was born, she made them a Christmas stocking.
Each stocking was made of red felt, with the name of the child running vertically down its length. Each had a slightly different arrangement of snowmen, sprigs of holly and other festive touches, all fashioned from felt and affixed to the front.
The stockings had big rounded toes, the better to accommodate the traditional Christmas orange. The oldest child had the largest stocking, and the rest descended in order, each a bit smaller than its predecessor.
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Whether the sizing was deliberate or accidental on Gran’s part, it nevertheless maintained the pecking order among siblings.
With a stocking hand-made by Gran, every child had a prized possession to hang on Christmas Eve. Those without a fireplace in their home would hang them on the front or back of the living room couch by means of a big safety pin stuck through the loop that Gran had stitched into the stocking design.
Long after the secret of Santa was known, and long after it was even seemly to hang a stocking, my mother kept getting the stockings out of storage each Christmas. So of course we’d put them up, and there would be goodies inside come Christmas morning.
The stockings and the Christmas bell, which incessantly tinkled out Jingle Bells through many a holiday, are symbols of our family Christmas. They share a place with ornaments collected over the years – the now-ragged red bird, the wee ornamental angels, the orbs hand-painted by my sister, the crocheted and starched snowflakes that were also made by Gran.
In late March 2008, a fire destroyed my parents’ garage and workshop. The ensuing months brought constant discoveries of loss – a set of tools, a favourite hammer, the saws, the antiques, the pictures and their frames – things that had been needed and used each day were gone, along with many treasures kept for sentimental reasons.
Gradually the most necessary items were replaced, and the uneasiness associated with the event began to fade.
It wasn’t until this month that we realized the Christmas stockings had been lost in the fire. Upset? We all were, I expect, but we tried not to show it, for fear of upsetting the others.
I’ve been thinking about those stockings and they’ve brought to mind many happy Christmases past.
The stockings are icons of those times, which we’ll remember with joy this Christmas. After all, Christmas has never been about things.
Merry Christmas to you and yours.
