A Poll about Stockings

[*****]

We don't do 'big' stocking gifts, just gifts that match each one's personality. Our grown girls enjoy seeing what is in their stockings as much as, if not more than, opening gifts from under the tree.  Some are wrapped and some aren't, but there is still excitement in opening them.   DH's FOO never wrapped stocking gifts and nothing was 'personal', just stuff you see to put in stockings. We got a toenail clipper in ours once and I was like, what?!  Who needs another one of those. No, I didn't want stuff just because you were supposed to fill a stocking. (Probably because I was the one later to have to clear out all the junk drawers and trinkets around the house. 

[happi duck]

Our tradition comes via my foo.  We do stockings for St. Nicholas not Christmas.  The stocking shows up on your bedroom door early December 6 filled with nuts, fruit, treats, and a gifty thing.  No wrapping.

I have never encountered Christmas morning stockings in the wild just read about them on the board!

[HomeAgain]

11 hours ago, ***** said:

We got a toenail clipper in ours once and I was like, what?!  Who needs another one of those.

😂  Us?   LOL I am putting one in dh's stocking this year.  The man suffers from the problem of putting them down and immediately losing them.  I cannot tell you how many pairs of nail clippers we have bought (only slightly less than the number of tweezers).  Then he grumbles and complains that he can never find them when he needs them.

 

Our stockings are half traditional (peppermint stick, chocolate coins, toothbrush, chapstick) and half personal (a special treat, a small game, something needed/wanted..).  There's no wrapping because the stocking is mostly filler time until the coffee is made and the adults are awake enough to do gifts. 

[barnwife]

14 hours ago, footballmom said:

Santa brings one wrapped gift for each child and does not wrap stocking things.  Santa’s main elf does an excellent job curating stocking items each year that delight the kids and are a balance of fun and practical.  She should probably negotiate for an end of season bonus 😉 

Don't sell yourself...I mean, that elf, short! Go for a raise and a bonus!

[barnwife]

18 hours ago, EKS said:

Most certainly not!  It's not in their contract.

Well, some elves are gift-makers and some are gift-wrappers. Obviously the contracts are different!

14 hours ago, LifeLovePassion said:

Nope. I have even gone so far as to not wrap gifts, but just pile packages under the tree as they arrive (in our busiest years) and I made cloth bags too. I didn't like the extra waste associated with wrapping of time, money and non recyclable paper. 

Interestingly, I am slowly starting to switch to cloth gift bags. I wish I was crafty enough to make some. FWIW, paper gets reused around here.

2 hours ago, happi duck said:

Our tradition comes via my foo.  We do stockings for St. Nicholas not Christmas.  The stocking shows up on your bedroom door early December 6 filled with nuts, fruit, treats, and a gifty thing.  No wrapping.

I have never encountered Christmas morning stockings in the wild just read about them on the board!

That's funny, because my experience is the opposite. I've never encountered St. Nick's day stockings. You leave your shoes out for him!

1 hour ago, HomeAgain said:

😂  Us?   LOL I am putting one in dh's stocking this year.  The man suffers from the problem of putting them down and immediately losing them.  I cannot tell you how many pairs of nail clippers we have bought (only slightly less than the number of tweezers).  Then he grumbles and complains that he can never find them when he needs them.

 

Our stockings are half traditional (peppermint stick, chocolate coins, toothbrush, chapstick) and half personal (a special treat, a small game, something needed/wanted..).  There's no wrapping because the stocking is mostly filler time until the coffee is made and the adults are awake enough to do gifts. 

Stockings are a mix of traditional and personal here, too, but it's all wrapped!

[marbel]

1 hour ago, HomeAgain said:

😂  Us?   LOL I am putting one in dh's stocking this year.  The man suffers from the problem of putting them down and immediately losing them.  I cannot tell you how many pairs of nail clippers we have bought (only slightly less than the number of tweezers).  Then he grumbles and complains that he can never find them when he needs them.

 

Our stockings are half traditional (peppermint stick, chocolate coins, toothbrush, chapstick) and half personal (a special treat, a small game, something needed/wanted..).  There's no wrapping because the stocking is mostly filler time until the coffee is made and the adults are awake enough to do gifts. 

I often put nail clippers, nail files, other personal care necessities in stockings. For some reason I draw the line at toothbrushes but I know people who do those too. People around here are always stealing borrowing someone's clippers, file, tweezers and they just get lost. Like socks. Everyone gets their personal preferred lip balms too. Among some fun stuff, including a gift card and cash.

[Kassia]

25 minutes ago, marbel said:

I often put nail clippers, nail files, other personal care necessities in stockings. For some reason I draw the line at toothbrushes but I know people who do those too. People around here are always stealing borrowing someone's clippers, file, tweezers and they just get lost. Like socks. Everyone gets their personal preferred lip balms too. Among some fun stuff, including a gift card and cash.

I have one son who loves getting a toothbrush and toothpaste in his stocking every year.  Less for him to have to buy during the year and I like knowing he'll replace his toothbrush sooner since it will be convenient.  But he loves practical gifts - I give him things like bar soap, liquid soap, paper towels...even toilet paper sometimes.  Another son loves when I give him his favorite dental floss.  🙂  

[skimomma]

You are all wrong about the wrapping.  Santa DOES wrap all the presents, even stocking gifts.  And he does not use the household paper....because who has time to break into a house, find the wrapping paper, and wrap everything?  No no no.  What happens, you see, is that every year Santa picks up and saves comic pages from newspapers all over the country as he is dropping off gifts and uses them to wrap gifts the next year.  And it truly does have to be Santa because no parent would be dumb enough to start a tradition that involves soliciting year-old funny pages from all over the country every year.  And what parent would now be in a position of STILL doing this because their grown-ass kid still expects it?  And what parent could have predicted that newspapers would die and it would get harder and harder for Santa to collect them?  Doh!

Anyone want to send me Santa your funny pages for next year?

[barnwife]

8 minutes ago, skimomma said:

You are all wrong about the wrapping.  Santa DOES wrap all the presents, even stocking gifts.  And he does not use the household paper....because who has time to break into a house, find the wrapping paper, and wrap everything?  No no no.  What happens, you see, is that every year Santa picks up and saves comic pages from newspapers all over the country as he is dropping off gifts and uses them to wrap gifts the next year.  And it truly does have to be Santa because no parent would be dumb enough to start a tradition that involves soliciting year-old funny pages from all over the country every year.  And what parent would now be in a position of STILL doing this because their grown-ass kid still expects it?  And what parent could have predicted that newspapers would die and it would get harder and harder for Santa to collect them?  Doh!

Anyone want to send me Santa your funny pages for next year?

First, I don't think I've ever seen a post on WTM start out so right (the part I bolded) and then veer so far into wrongness.

Also, I'd totally donate comic pages to Santa if I had any.

[Drama Llama]

I'm starting to wonder if Santa's elves are like the toothfairy.  My kids taught me that each family gets their own tooth fairy, which is why each family has such different experiences.  Ours, for example, is very bad at math so you get what you get  . . . Also, he doesn't keep teeth.  I think he's a minimalist.  He just flies in, and treats them like museum pieces.  

Anyway, maybe we each have our own elf too?  And that's why only ours has thought of wrapping things in socks?

[Drama Llama]

9 hours ago, skimomma said:

You are all wrong about the wrapping.  Santa DOES wrap all the presents, even stocking gifts.  And he does not use the household paper....because who has time to break into a house, find the wrapping paper, and wrap everything?  No no no.  What happens, you see, is that every year Santa picks up and saves comic pages from newspapers all over the country as he is dropping off gifts and uses them to wrap gifts the next year.  And it truly does have to be Santa because no parent would be dumb enough to start a tradition that involves soliciting year-old funny pages from all over the country every year.  And what parent would now be in a position of STILL doing this because their grown-ass kid still expects it?  And what parent could have predicted that newspapers would die and it would get harder and harder for Santa to collect them?  Doh!

Anyone want to send me Santa your funny pages for next year?

Maybe you could have your elf talk to my elf, and convince him that socks are more environmentally friendly.  

[BusyMom5]

I don't wrap Santa gifts or stuff in stocking.  Stockings are usually a mix of food, needed items (gloves, hats, toothbrushes, etc) and a few toys and art supplies thrown in.  Santa's gift is one bigger toy item- but its getting hard with older kids!  I've decided Santa stops leaving gifts out once you turn 20, so this is my oldest last year.  She will still get plenty of gifts from us, just not the toy gift from Santa.  I will probably still do a stocking,  though. 

I wrap some gifts to put under the tree the week or two before Christmas, but usually I don't finish until Christmas night, so the whole big pile of gifts always grows!  We have 6 kids, even with a reasonable amount each, its a huge job to wrap it all.  

[Tenaj]

I need to stop wrapping.  Right now the tradition is that most things are wrapped - some candy isn't.  I just made a list yesterday and realized that I am stuffing 20 stockings this year - which I knew in my head but when I actually wrote it down on paper realized that is crazy.  My main problem is that I've tried and tried to wean my grown kids off of the stocking tradition with no luck.  Maybe I need to start a spin off thread about how to do that.

[Dmmetler]

I wrap. Having said that, I also have cloth gift bags in sizes to cover almost any gift, so wrapping takes very little time. I also don't do special stocking gifts. Small sized things go in the stockings, big ones on the mantle/under the tree. I've put a teen's cell phone in a stocking before.

 

I do stockings for everyone who is there on Christmas, including pets (snakes have drawstring bags, designed to go over wine bottles, because many years ago, L pointed out that stockings make no sense for creatures without feet, and snake bags (basically pillowcases) are used in working with snakes). 

Edited December 14, 2022 by Dmmetler

[purpleowl]

Stockings at our house just have candy (or other edible treats), not wrapped.

My parents did candy and a small gift or two in stockings for us when I was growing up, nothing wrapped. 

DH's family did small wrapped gifts.

[katilac]

On 12/12/2022 at 10:02 AM, Farrar said:

Just in defense of the feeding frenzy types... my paternal grandparents' house was a bit like this. It was super chaotic. But it was small, they were poor, there was a lot of good humor to it. It wasn't because they weren't grateful. It was because people were coming and going and there wasn't always room at the table (or even on the floor) and adults were often just as ready to see everything opened. I have a lot of thoughts about this sort of thing. It rubbed me the wrong way seeing it in my in-laws as well. But also, the older I've gotten, the more I've been able to draw some distance and think about traditions in a different way. I don't know... it's complex. There's a beauty in the frenzy too, even if it'll never be what I personally gravitate towards.

Yes. The frenzy alone doesn't mean people are ungrateful or rude, lots of people enjoy it, and you can certainly look at the gifts and give proper thanks after the chaos, lol. 

And the flip side is that some of us really, really hate having a room full of people stare at us and await our reaction to a gift 😄

I have many happy memories of big, loud, frenzied family gatherings! 

[barnwife]

4 hours ago, Tenaj said:

My main problem is that I've tried and tried to wean my grown kids off of the stocking tradition with no luck.  Maybe I need to start a spin off thread about how to do that.

Okay, this really, truly made me laugh. My sister and I have tried to get our mom to stop stocking for us/the grandkids. We don't want/need them in addition to what we get with our own families. Also, I'd guess I trash/donate 70% of what's in them for DH and I. And the stuff in the kids is cheap stuff that breaks/gets tossed within about a day, unless it's the candy.

If she'd switch to all food, it wouldn't be so bad.

Sorry your kids aren't on board...I support you 100%!

[Kassia]

30 minutes ago, katilac said:

Yes. The frenzy alone doesn't mean people are ungrateful or rude, lots of people enjoy it, and you can certainly look at the gifts and give proper thanks after the chaos, lol. 

And the flip side is that some of us really, really hate having a room full of people stare at us and await our reaction to a gift 😄

I have many happy memories of big, loud, frenzied family gatherings! 

And I have memories of Christmases with large gatherings where every gift was opened separately and it took forever.  We'd go around the room while each person would open one gift from their pile and we'd go around and around and around.  It was awful.  Now everyone opens one gift at the same time and then we move on to the next until everyone is done.  (not stockings - those everyone opens at the same time at their own pace)  It still takes a while but it seems like a compromise between the frenzy and endless gift opening.  

And you're right about people hating when everyone is watching you open the gift! 

[Clarita]

We don't do stockings or presents but I absolutely celebrate Christmas. We have Christmas meals and parties, we try to do an advent thing during our morning school. The Fisherprice nativity scene gets "displayed".

My little girl loves the Christmas tree so we have that. We, the parents, put up the lights but the kids (6 and 4.5) are in charge of decorating it. It pretty much looks like a 4.5 year old decorated the Christmas tree. Next year I'm thinking about letting them put the lights on too. 

[Catwoman]

On 12/12/2022 at 10:59 AM, EKS said:

Santa doesn't wrap presents.

I'm sorry.

I blame myself.

Santa was probably so busy wrapping all of my family's gifts (including the stocking stuffers,) that he didn't have time to wrap your family's gifts. 😉 

 

[Catwoman]

In our house, everything gets wrapped, including the stocking stuffers! It usually takes me until about 5:00am on Christmas morning to finish wrapping everything and setting it all up under the tree so it looks JUST RIGHT, but it's totally worth it. (Oh, and my ds is 22 and I still do it because I am a lunatic.)

 

[Kassia]

20 minutes ago, Catwoman said:

In our house, everything gets wrapped, including the stocking stuffers! It usually takes me until about 5:00am on Christmas morning to finish wrapping everything and setting it all up under the tree so it looks JUST RIGHT, but it's totally worth it. (Oh, and my ds is 22 and I still do it because I am a lunatic.)

 

My sons are 31 and 28 (twins) and I still do it.  They love their stockings!