This article by Ray Spitzenberger first appeared in Images for East Bernard Express, 6 October 2022.
My wife Peggy has been working on a Christmas stocking for our newest grandbaby’s first Christmas. She’s making good progress, so it should be ready by December.
I did not grow up in a family with a Christmas stocking tradition, though we had many other Christmas customs, but Peggy did. After we married, my mother-in-law sewed beautifully sequined Christmas stockings for me and for my wife (Peggy’s would replace her childhood stocking which she still had). When we were expecting our first child, my mother-in-law, using a kit, created a splendid stocking for our first daughter who was born on December 2. Nana Davis used lots of sequins on all her creations.
Sadly, Nana Davis passed away before our second daughter was born, and we bought her a Christmas stocking, but it was handmade from an arts and crafts shop. At that point in time, Peggy was not interested in doing needlework.
However, by the time our oldest daughter was expecting her first child, and we knew it was going to be a girl, Nana-to-Be Spitzenberger tried her hand at the art of Christmas stocking making, believing that she should carry on the family tradition. Nana Spitzenberger went overboard and created a beautifully ornamented stocking that was large enough for the baby girl to fit in, not that we planned to put her in it.
Being the frugal German Wend that I am, I was a bit concerned about how much “stuff” we’d have to buy every Christmas to fill this “cotton picker’s sack.” Nana Spitzenberger assured me that her parents would fill stockings with apples and oranges as well as with candy and toys.
In our Wendish traditions of celebrating Christmas, my parents would hang candy canes, apples and oranges on the Christmas tree and put our toys under the tree, so it took me a long time to get used to the hanging of the Christmas stockings.
Hanging the stockings on the fireplace mantel was a very British custom, though it was first done among Orthodox Christians in Turkey. My wife’s parents were English and Scotch-Irish.
In the Netherlands and in Germany, children would place their shoes in front of the fireplace for St. Nick to find and fill on December 6. Catholic Wends in Germany followed this tradition, but Lutheran Wends usually did not, though they recognized St. Nicholas as a saint. These facts explain why my wife’s family hung stockings, and my family did neither stockings nor shoes.
By the time Nana Spitzenberger began working on the second granddaughter’s stocking, I had come to accept the stocking tradition as a charming part of my Christmas traditions, too.
Finding the right stocking kit for each child was somewhat difficult because it was made before we got to know the personality of the grandchild. But, strangely enough, it always turned out that the stocking pattern chosen fit the child’s personality perfectly.
As the Nana began planning Stocking No. 2, I hinted that perhaps the stocking size could be smaller lest we run out of hanging space (and money to buy goodies). It turned out quite a bit smaller, but still was the second largest family stocking, the current stocking underway almost as large.
The eight older family stockings, plus the current ninth one underway represent mixed themes, some religious and some secular. My stocking has a jolly Santa Claus depicted on it, — most appropriate since I am usually the “Santa Claus” who fills the stockings with Christmas delights. My youngest daughter has a rather whimsical-looking Angel on hers, and my oldest granddaughter’s stocking consists of a gigantic traditional-looking Angel. Each seems to fit the person.
For our third and newest granddaughter, we chose a manger scene, with lots of animals, as well as Baby Jesus and the Bethlehem Star. It has a rustic look to it and completes the set. That is, if Nana Spitzenberger finishes it in time. She will.
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Ray Spitzenberger is a retired Wharton County Junior College teacher, a retired Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod pastor, and author of three books, It Must Be the Noodles, Open Prairies, and Tanka Schoen.