Christmas Stockings

It's a funny thing to do a blog post on, but I love our family's Christmas stockings. They are each special in their own way. They are not your average run of the mill store bought stockings, ours are all hand knit, with love by family. Neal's stocking was made by his great grandmother on his mother's side and mine and the kids' were all made by my grandmother, Sophie.

The story of how the stockings came to be.....

Neal and I have had our stockings for as long as we can remember. When I was pregnant with Sophie in 2006, I knew that I did not want her to have a store bought stocking, but rather the made-with-love kind her Daddy and I had. At the time my grandmother was feverishly knitting baby blankets for the 3 babies that were about to enter our family (myself and my two cousins were each welcoming little ones that year!) so I thought why not ask if she could whip up a stocking too?! Much to my disappointment my grandmother no longer had the pattern for the stocking that she made for all her children, her children's spouses, and her grandchildren. She did, however tell me that she still had my grandfather's stocking up in the attic that she could simply stitch Sophie's name on. I was overjoyed not only to have a knit stocking for my new baby girl, but what made it all the more special was that it was my grandfather's who passed away when I was just 2 years old.

When Jonah came along in 2009 I knew I was going to need another stocking to keep the tradition going. Knowing that my grandmother could no longer knit one due to the lack of a pattern, my mom offered up her stocking to her new grandson. My mom lovingly stitched Jonah's name onto her stocking making it his.

Fast forward 2 years almost to the day and sweet Maisie Dorothea enters our family. We most certainly could not have mismatched stockings at this point, so my mother already had a plan in place, my father's stocking would become Maisie's.

So while the children's stockings were not made specifically for them, the theme of how they acquired them remains the same........love.