Does anyone have a tradition they use in place of Christmas stockings?

[*********]

Dh and I are trying to figure out how we are comfortable 'doing' Christmas. It's very tricky.

 

I've shared on the board before that I'd rather not have gifts at all for Christmas. Our children don't need (or really even *want, for that matter), anything. Certainly dh and I have no material needs. I'd just, you know, rather not do gifts.

 

But, we do. I have two stepchildren, who celebrate Christmas with lots of gifts at their mother's home, so I understand my dh feeling obligated in some way to keep up some sort of gift-giving tradition on December 25th. Whatever, ok, we'll get the kids gifts. I love my kids, and love getting them things I know they'll enjoy. I just don't like the whole 'Christmas' thing, and what it's become about. At least what it's like in our extended family.

 

But, I digress. :tongue_smilie:

 

We've always had stockings in the past. We don't put up a tree, but dh and I fill the kids stockings on Christmas Eve, and leave them out with their other gifts. Each child gets a stocking filled with little gifts and candy, along with 2 or three other, larger gifts.

 

We don't want to do stockings anymore. We just have no attachment to the tradition of a 'stocking', but we like the idea of a collection of small things and treats that the children would like. Plus, everyone in the familiy has a stocking at my mil's house that mil and fil fill every year. So it's not like the children will be 'doing without' a stocking. :001_smile:

 

Any ideas? Dh thought making up a 'goodie basket' of sorts for each child. Any suggestions on what sort of container to use? Either some sort of container the children would enjoy keeping, or something that could be re-used?

 

Anyone have a stocking-like tradition that they use? We're not opposed to the idea of a tradition; we just, I don't know, want to do something 'different' I guess.

 

(And just FYI, in case the info helps, we don't 'do' Santa, either.)

Edited November 3, 2009 by bethanyniez
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[OnTheBrink]

What about using a container the child can use? Tackle box, art box, some sort of cute storage bin? It could be part of the gift, or maybe just get some sort of box or bin, decorate it with scripture or snowflakes or whatever and just use that instead of the stocking. You could use a scripture about how every good thing comes from God, or a verse about the gift of salvation.

[Daisy]

My friends set out shoes on the porch and they are filled on Christmas morning. I think this may be a French and Dutch tradition.

 

What about using the German back-to-school tradition of filling a Schultüte (large paper cone) with treats and small items?

 

I don't know. I'd look maybe back into your heritage and see what ideas you find.

[specialmama]

You could always find tins shaped certain ways. What are the interests of each child? For example, you could find a C3PO-shaped tin for a Star Wars fan, or a castle tin for a princess fan. If the container suits them, then they'll find a use for it. My daughter begged for a small, silver flip-top garbage can (think 1 litre) for her bedroom one year, and although we didn't use it to replace the stocking, we did fill it with some things for her. My MIL loves to wrap presents in new towels or sheets: it's environmentally friendly plus it's a gift in and of itself... so going with that theme, you could give each of the kids a housecoat (or bath robe) and pile all the "stocking" goodies in the centre of it and use the belt to tie it up like a furry sac. You could also get them a new set of bedding and use the pillowcase as the sac, tied with a pretty ribbon or raffia. You could get them new backpacks and use those as containers. You could also be uber creative and have them create a paper mache bowl out of a balloon. Have them paint it however they please and this can become their new container.

[yslek]

My friends set out shoes on the porch and they are filled on Christmas morning. I think this may be a French and Dutch tradition.

 

What about using the German back-to-school tradition of filling a Schultüte (large paper cone) with treats and small items?

 

I don't know. I'd look maybe back into your heritage and see what ideas you find.

 

When I lived in Germany as a young girl, stockings were not a part of Christmas (which was celebrated on Christmas Eve). We did, however, do the boot-outside-the-door thing on St. Nicholas' Day (December 6th). You leave a boot outside the door of your home on St. Nicholas' Eve, and in the morning, it's filled with a small collection of goodies. :)

 

I remember getting a Shultüte, too, although it's only on the first day of first grade that you get one. (Unless you happen to be a lucky younger sibling...then you might get a miniature Tüte when your older siblings start 1st grade...I thought it was pretty unfair that my sister got to get TWO. :D)

 

I lived in Northern Germany (not too far from the Danish border), and don't know if/how either of the above-mentioned traditions vary in other parts of Germany.

[Garga]

Just to clarify:

 

So, you still are going to get the little gifts...but you just want to put them in something different from a stocking? You are tired of it being a stocking, and just want a different delivery method for the gifts?

 

If so, then the shoes sounds good. That way, it's something they already have. And along that vein...

 

...what my parents did for a few years (when I was a kid) was use our own actual socks (instead of those weird fake-looking "stockings" that are fluffy red with more white fluff on top.) It was fun to try to find the biggest sock we could find and hang it up on the 24th for it to be filled with gifts. (Of course, then you run the risk of stretching out your sock and maybe getting a nail hole in it.)

 

Or, you could do a scavenger hunt. The gifts could be all over the house with simple to complex clues leading you to the gifts (depending on the kid's ages.)

[Chris in VA]

May I just ask a nosy question? :D

How do your kids feel about giving up the tradition of stockings? I'd encourage you to check, because I've noticed I'm sometimes ready to give up things that have little meaning to me, only to find the tradition is important to my dd.

(BTW, we don't do Santa, either, fwiw)

[Pippen]

May I just ask a nosy question? :D

How do your kids feel about giving up the tradition of stockings? I'd encourage you to check, because I've noticed I'm sometimes ready to give up things that have little meaning to me, only to find the tradition is important to my dd.

)

 

Agree with this. You should have heard the uproar when I mentioned getting rid of the downstairs scraggly looking artificial tree where the kids had their ornmanents. A few years later it finally looked so bad they agreed it needed to go but until then they weren't ready.

[WTMCassandra]

I would do Christmas baskets or tins if I were in your position.

 

We eliminated stockings a few years ago and now we have a "family gift" for Christmas Eve that is a game that we then all play together.

[Rosie_0801]

How about putting the trinkets and things into a breakfast bowl on a nicely set table? They can fiddle around with their bits and pieces while you re-heat the cinnamon rolls.

 

Rosie

[melik]

Set a dollar amount for each person and do something meaningful for someone else (random or not so random acts of kindness). Then you can write a little story or present it in some creative way. It could be a little "pay it forward" show and tell.

 

I hope this makes sense.....I think that it would be nice to use the money that would usually go into stockings and everyone try to help others outside the family.

 

Examples:

buy a homeless person lunch or maybe a gift card

donate to a charity

a gift for a shut in

gift card for a single mom

 

 

I hope to make this a part of our tradition someday. My kids are a little to small to really grasp the idea yet.

 

Meli

[Desert Rat]

How about putting the trinkets and things into a breakfast bowl on a nicely set table? They can fiddle around with their bits and pieces while you re-heat the cinnamon rolls.

 

Rosie

 

I love Rosie's idea! I might just steal it! :lol:

 

When my boys were little, my mom gave them Easter buckets that I could use for their toys. I loved it! I've used tackle boxes for baskets as well. We're okay with the stocking thing, at least I was until I started reading this thread! :001_smile:

[KarenNC]

If they are small gifts, perhaps wrapped and hung on the tree (if you use a tree) or tucked among the branches? You can make little cones out of paper doilies or hang small wrapped boxes.

 

Basket-type options are almost endless (and often easy to find at thrift stores). We've started a tradition of using a particular gift bag for each person's Yule gift, one that is decorated in a meaningful way for each of us or that we particularly like.

 

Make large furoshiki cloths for each and wrap up the gifts. http://furoshiki.com/techniques/

[BikeBookBread]

You could commemorate the real St. Nicholas, who gave gifts of gold as dowries to young women who otherwise would not have been marriageable. He also punched Arius in the nose over his heresy, so you have something for both boys and girls there.

 

He's a lovely saint. More info here: http://www.stnicholascenter.org/Brix?pageID=38

 

:rofl:

[KidsHappen]

May I just ask a nosy question? :D

How do your kids feel about giving up the tradition of stockings? I'd encourage you to check, because I've noticed I'm sometimes ready to give up things that have little meaning to me, only to find the tradition is important to my dd.

(BTW, we don't do Santa, either, fwiw)

 

I agree with this whole heartedly. I would have given up stockings years ago but still give them to my adult children because they are so important to them. They would rather give up actual presents than the stockings. They are also terribly fond of the white elephant tradition. It is the goofy fun aspect of finding the perfect weird gift that may go to anyone that they love.

[KidsHappen]

Maybe a small gift basket? My kids love baskets, tins and other organizer kinds of containers. They are also terribly fond of small presents: make-up, playing cards, good luck trinkets, etc., but my children are somewhat odd in comparison with most children.

[ConnieB]

I agree with the pp about being sure that it's not important to your kids before giving it up. Some of my fondest childhood Christmas memories was the box of lifesavers that everyone received in their stocking....then the trading began as we all tried to trade to get only the flavors that we loved most......it was silly and crazy and sometimes went wrong, but it was tradition. I can't recall anything else from my stockings all those years so the other stuff was obviously unimportant, but I think if my mom would have decided to suddenly stop those, we'd have all been quite upset, and maybe angry. Though I'm thinking if she just put the lifesaver boxes on the coffee table we'd have been just fine, lol.

 

But, if they are ok with it, then

A few ideas....

 

Advent Calendars typically have spaces for small gifts. If you aren't Christian and therefore don't do Advent, it could simply be a Countdown to Christmas. I know you don't want to 'do' Christmas, and so counting down seems out of place, but it sounds like Christmas is going to happen whether you want it to or not, for the stepkids if nothing else.

 

We use our Advent calendar as a reminder to give to others.....each of the 25 doors is big enough for a small folded piece of paper....and each paper has something for us to count....like how many TVs do you have in your house, how many pairs of shoes, how many cans of soup in the pantry, etc....things that show that you are blessed to have "things". Then for that day you count whatever the item is, and that's how much you donate.....some years money has been tight and our donations have been x number of quarters, some years it's dollars, and one year when things were so bad we may have qualified for "needy" we vowed to give that many hours of our time over the course of the following year. That was probably the most significant actually.....because it was a large number of hours because we still had much material things, even if our bank account was almost empty. We found places to donate our time...some charitable some just volunteer time....food bank, library, we even did a couple of hours at a senior center (and this one we actually still do on a semi-regular basis).

 

Or, make a game out of it.....each day hide their little gifts and leave hints or riddles (depending on their age and ability of course) like a scavenger hunt to find it around the house.

 

 

Maybe make the gifts for your children wait until they are with the step-siblings. Make Christmas morning at your house not be about Santa or gifts, or stockings, or any of that.....but about family time. Find something that your family loves to do together, but rarely has time, and make the time that morning. Maybe a special board game, or cuddling in bed and reading stories, or going for a hike (depending on where you live, of course, around hiking is wonderful and we always do this as a family on New Year's morning). New Year's Eve we always play a long drawn out game of Monopoly....I hate the silly game so I'll only play it once a year, lol....the kids play it together throughout the year, but Dad and I only join in on New Year's Eve....a great way to waste time waiting for the ball to drop so I can go to sleep, lol.

 

Depending on the age of your kids, I would probably bring them in on it.....have a list of ideas that you can live with and propose them to see which they want to adopt as their new tradition.

[Dobela]

I agree that you should include your kids in the discussion. We have rarely put anything in our stockings so they are more of a decoration than a gift holder. But I sure can't forget to hang them because they mean so much to my son for some reason.

[Julie in Monterey]

I would discuss this with my children, especially the older ones. I'm sure they'll come up with a fantastic idea that everyone will enjoy. Just ask them.

 

I to tire of the "Christmas frenzy" of gifts, etc. However, I do appreciate the joy my children experience when receiving a handmade gift or for that matter making a gift for someone they care about. I can't control my extended family and their gift habits (they go way overboard ) but they do enjoy sending things. Over the past few years we have gradually moved to giving and receiving gifts of consumables. My mother in law last year bought our family the Rossetta Stone Spanish package and the sister in laws got together and purchased a family membership to the Aquarium. They can still be generous and promote a healthy attitude without adding to the "stuff" in our lives.

 

Some things we do are : wrap Holiday/winter related books and have the children unwrap one each day before Christmas. I have about 24 so they unwrap one on December 1 and end with Christmas Eve. It is our read aloud each night before bedtime during that season. Our children now act out and read "The Night Before Christmas" on Christmas eve and get a real kick out of it. This idea was of course one I poached here on these boards. It's been fun for the kids to unwrap. Even though they know it's a book, they don't know which one it is. Even I admit, it's fun to unwrap presents.

 

We also bake all of our friends Gingerbread families and deliver them in the days leading up to the holidays. Just our little way of saying, "you mean something to us, from our family to yours".

 

So, I didn't give you an idea of a container. I do love the boots or shoes idea. Forever, my favorite gift was my stocking even until I moved out of the house. My mom took so much care to fill it with things I loved. As I got older it might be an embroidered vintage hanky or a special pair of earrings.

 

Let us know what you come up with.

 

Julie in Montery

[Liz CA]

I lived in Southern GER and the tradition of St. Nick bringing something was the same. It seemed to be the precursor to gifts on Christmas Eve which were always associated with the "Christ Child", never St. Nick.

(In this part of the country or in my family at least, it was explained that "Nicholas or Nikolaus" was a good man who gave small gifts to the children at this time of year to remind them of the larger gift they received by Christ's birth.)

 

We would usually find either a basket or new rubber boots filled with little things like chocolates, small coloring books, later reading books and some socks or mittens needed for winter.

[Evergreen State Sue]

My dh's family had a tradition at Christmas that I thought was German but it might have been Russian. They had plain paper sacks called tuetkas. In them were filled with an orange or apple, nuts in the shell, hard candies, and maybe a small toy. When I was growing up, that was what we had in our stocking - more food items and maybe one toy.

[Peela]

I dont think stockings has ever been a popular tradition in AUstralia. I grew up with getting a lovely new pillow case (usually with a disney character on it) and it was fitted over the back of a chair and filled with gifts. So its bigger than a stocking but if you can get all the gifts in there it works well.

I don't do the tradition with my kids even though I have fond memories of it- they just get presents under the tree and dh has insisted on stockings with lollies until last year when he agreed they just dont need those lollies any more.

[Danestress]

Maybe you can find a substitute that means more to you. I know you aren't wild about the present part anyway, but if you are going to do it, then think about how it can be more meaningful for you.

 

All gift giving at Christmas seems sweeter to me if I try to think of it as a picture (however feeble and material) of God's sweetness and kindness to us. So I can imagine you could use something that resembles oil jars and read scripture about Elisha and the widow. Or you could buy some kind of over-sized (super-sized) tea cups and fill them with goodies and use Psalm 23's delight in my cup 'overfloweth.' I'm sure you can think of other images, but I like the idea of teaching our children that Christmas, with the lights and the feast and the giving and the visiting, is just a small picture of the joy we will have in eternity. Christ used the wedding banquet as a picture of eternity, but I think in our culture, maybe a Christmas feast would be a good analogy.

[babysparkler]

We don't "do" santa either. I'm not huge on the commercialism of Christmas... it offends me, you could say. We "do" presents, but our twist on it is that we are celebrating Jesus' birthday, and what is a birthday present without gifts?!? From early on the kids have learned that the gifts are all for Jesus, but he gives them to us to open and play with because he loves to bless us and bring us joy. Every Christmas morning is a birthday party, cake and all. I may do a pinata this year too ;)... perhaps that could replace your stockings? Or birthday party goodie bags like you would give out at birthday party to all of the guests? I sometimes even use Birthday wrapping paper mixed in with the Christmas themed wrapping paper (no santa, though). My kids LOVE LOVE LOVE birthday parties, so we make this one the bash of the year :)