History of Christmas Stockings

Christmas is a festive season celebrated all over the world. A lot of traditions are associated with Christmas. The festival brings hope, happiness and festive fervor in each individual's life. Every person loves to spend quality time with friends and family during Christmas holiday season. The family comes together to enjoy parties and feasts. The preparations for the festive begin as early as last week of November. The houses are cleaned and decorated with wreaths, lights and so on. The Christmas tree is bought and decorated with tinsel, ornaments, paper flowers, etc.

Kids enjoy the festival as they get gifts from elders as well as Santa Claus. The kids usually hang their stockings near the fireplace so that Santa can give them goodies like toys, books, candies and sweets as gifts. Hanging the Christmas stocking is an old tradition followed during Christmas. Christmas stockings are the socks that children hang near the fireplace or any other place in the house. These small gifts given are referred as stocking stuffers or fillers. There is a belief that the children who have good manners only get gifts while children with bad behavior get a piece of coal.

Christmas stocking is an old tradition but when did it start is not documented in history. The origins of Christmas stockings have a lot of stories associated with. The most popular story is of an old man and his three daughters. The old man had three daughters of marriageable age. He had no money to give as dowry and therefore, he was sad. St. Nicholas came to know about his bad plight. On the Christmas Eve, St. Nicholas entered the home through the chimney. He had brought three bags of gold coins to help the old man. St. Nicholas was clueless about where to keep the coins. At that time, he saw three stockings hanging near the mantle piece above the fireplace. The stockings were left for drying. St. Nicholas put the three bags of gold coins in the three stockings and left. In the morning, the girls saw the gold coins and they were happy. The old man managed to get them married and they lived happily ever after.

From that day onwards, kids hang stocking on Christmas Eve to get gifts from Santa Claus, a modified version of St. Nicholas. The tradition began in European countries and then spread across the world. In olden days, kids used to hang their regular socks. But later on, specially designed Christmas stockings were manufactured. Today, markets are full of Christmas stockings before Christmas. These stockings are available in various sizes, colors and attractive designs. There are some families who use home made stockings. Each family member hangs the stocking with his or her name to get the gifts.

The Christmas stocking tradition is one of the most popular traditions of Christmas. This is a tradition that is loved by kids as well as elders.