The Tradition of Christmas Stockings

Children and the young at heart have for many generations hung their stockings from the mantelpiece on Christmas Eve hoping that St. Nick would come that night to fill them up with sweets and small precious gifts. Christmas stockings are a personal and wonderful holiday tradition. People nowadays have become more creative designing the stockings using different shapes and sizes, colors and materials. Of course, they are still hung over the mantel by the fireplace or simply somewhere else adequate in the house.

The stocking has become very important to young children since this is the one spot that Santa sends his message as to whether a child has been good or naughty. The child with good behavior gets rewarded with gifts in his stockings while the naughtily behaved child receives a lump of coal instead.

The tradition of Christmas stockings is believed to have started in Germany. Children simply used to hang their everyday socks on the mantle to dry. Over time, someone liked the idea and decided to make very creative stockings for the only purpose of Christmas delight. Of course, these days you can basically buy or make stockings that are different colors, sizes or shapes and can be personalized with names of each member of the family. This helps Santa to distribute the gifts to the right person without too much confusion.

With almost all Christmas traditions follows a legend explaining how, where, what and who started the tradition. In this case, the legend of the Christmas stockings started with a nobleman who was very rich and powerful but yet kind and gentle towards his fellow men. After the passing of his wife of a long and dreadful sickness, he was left with three daughters to raise on his own. They all felt grief and misery for quite some time after the passing of his wife and mother.