Over dinner one night a couple of weeks before Christmas I was telling my wife about the stockings I used to get when I was a kid. We used my mom's old nylons; you know the ones they held up with garters. I grew up in the '60s, at the dawn of panty hose, and as my mom embraced the 'new' technology she was looking for ways to reuse the old.
So those nylons became Christmas stocking for my brother and me. They were tied to the posts at the ends of our beds and we'd wake up in the cold prairie night and grab them. Turning on the bedroom light would mean our parents would know we were up too early, which would usually elicit a yell to go back to sleep. To be safe we'd open the contents of the stocking in darkness.
My dad being a methodical man, the order of the contents of our Christmas stockings never varied. At the top would be something sweet β some chocolates and a box of Lifesavers, usually. Then there would be something to play with β games or small action figures, one year a water pistol. In the middle, and the only present actually wrapped, would be something special β a Dinky toy. When I was a kid, the rubber-tired cast metal Dinky toys β cars and trucks and military vehicles β represented the very best and we'd usually open this present last. After the Dinky toy would be a carrot β I have no idea why β and the very end of the stocking, in the toe, would be a Mandarin orange.
My wife thought the story amusing, especially when I said this could be why I still like playing with nylons, especially when she wears them.
These days, at our house, we hang the Christmas stockings from the fireplace mantel in the living room. On Christmas Eve, after a late dinner of tourtiere β the traditional French Canadian pork pie β and a fine French Bordeaux, we adjourn to open the stockings. Of course, first they have to be filled.
So we each take the other's stocking to a different bedroom and fill it according to the range of ohhhs and ahhhs we wish to solicit.
This Christmas Eve when I returned to the living room with my wife's stocking she was already there, standing oddly to one side of the fireplace. For some reason she'd changed and was now wearing a red dress. Unless it was behind her, I couldn't see my stocking as I hung hers on the other side.
"Where's my stocking," I ask innocently.
"Right here," she says.
"Where?"
"Here, right here." She points to her chest.
"Behind you?"
"No, silly. Right here. Me. I'm your Christmas stocking."
My puzzlement slowly turns to a grin.
"Ohhhh, are you. Hmmm, so where's the stocking?"
She pulls up the hem of her dress just high enough so I can see the top of a nylon stocking. "I'm standing in your stocking," she says, her eyes twinkling.
"Yes, you are. So where do I start unwrapping my stocking."
"Well," says my wife. "Didn't you tell me that as a young boy there was always something sweet at the top of your stocking?"
"Hey, that's right."