Countdown to Christmas … Day 9

My time is short today. In fact, so short….I am actually writing today’s post on Monday!!! 

Russ and I are attending a Christmas concert in St. Louis tonight and will be up and on the road very early to make our date with the residents of the care facility we visit every Tuesday. 

So here is another story about my mom, but short enough to tap out so I can finish packing and getting things in order to hit the road. 

When we all became a certain age, my family of origin decided to open stockings on Christmas Eve. 

This is because all of our stockings were hand knit by my aunt and had grown considerably over the years. So had the fun of stuffing them. 

My mom, dad and aunt would collect little items from travels or things they had made and such all year and the stockings became the main event for them. They loved telling the story behind most of what we pulled out. 

With the abundance of items, the unwrapping and the story behind the gift….it took most of the evening to open…thus the switch to Christmas Eve!

Here is the kicker though. 

My mother insisted that every item be wrapped. 

We are talking about a LOT of items. 

As she was busy decorating and baking and finishing her cards (she hand made our cards every year…and sent to over a hundred people…) my pre-teen and teen Christmases saw me tasked with wrapping the stash she had collected. 

Now my father bought pretty much only for my mom and he wrapped hers, but I got everyone else’s piles. Sometimes I even had to wrap my own contents!!!

I can say that I perfected my wrapping skills and actually learned to love it, but as a teen…there were days….

It was freeing to marry into a family that had no interest in wrapping and unwrapping all the contents of a Christmas sock and as for us and our house…we do not wrap stocking gifts. 

How about you? 

What’s your stocking stand on this topic? 

Blessings and have a fun day <3