Along with trees and wreaths, Christmas stockings are among the most treasured symbols of the holiday season. The silhouette of stockings hanging from fireplace mantels long has been etched into our memories, inspired first by the drawings of illustrator Thomas Nast for Harper’s Weekly between 1863 and 1866.
In some families, Christmas stockings have become heirlooms passed from generation to generation, with collections starting with a baby’s first stocking. Many fondly recall the delight of unwrapping and hanging up the family’s stockings each year, and then of digging deep for the goodies tucked inside on that special day.
The domain of holiday stockings is by no means limited to children. Four in five Americans polled by Sprint say adults enjoy them too. In fact, Christmas stockings have evolved into vibrant decorative accents that can be color-keyed to furnishings in the rooms they adorn.
Stockings come in all shapes and sizes, supersized to contain a treasure of stuffers or petite enough to serve as tree ornaments. One 17 1/2-inch-long stocking sold through Orvis this year unzips to expand for larger stuffers; it boasts a 10-inch-wide foot. Another 3-footer from the catalog Sincerely Yours features pockets in which to slip greeting cards.
Traditional stocking designs such as angels, nutcrackers, Santas, trees, stars, candy canes, teddy bears, poinsettias, ornaments, snowmen and reindeer often are stitched in old-fashioned needlepoint. Some images are more stylized with bold, contemporary updates. Price range is considerable, from about $10 to $100 apiece.
Some stockings are sewn from cotton, felt, quilts or flannels, while others are dressed in formal fabrics such as velvet, satin and brocade, perhaps glammed up with beads, tassels or feathers.
Christmas stockings also follow fashions. You’ll see transparent organzas in shimmering metallic that play peekaboo with their wrapped contents. Others are made from denim and faux furs.
MacKenzie-Childs, a design firm known for hand-crafted
ceramics, furniture and home accessories, features dashing plaids in unexpected hues of red, purple and green or signature black-and-white check. The company’s silk stockings are jesterlike, with pompoms on the toes and layers of ruffles and trims at the top. Some plaid socks have lace cuffs, and others with appliques of Westies and Scotties can be filled with treats for your pets. The Mac-
kenzie-Childs stockings range from $50 to $80.
Some socks light up, thanks to fiber-optic technology (one source is magilight.com). If you’d rather do it yourself, knitting or embroidering ready-
made stockings is an option. Or create your own looks with a stylish assortment of patterns from such companies as Butterick and McCalls.
Not surprisingly, Martha Stewart believes Christmas stockings are a good thing. Her Living magazine and holiday books always are chock-full of new ideas. A recent example showed how to recycle sweaters into fetching stockings that button down the front. One felt stocking lines up overlapping rows of trees in several shades of green, decorated with vintage glass buttons.
Stocking placement extends beyond the mantel, so no worries if you don’t have a fireplace. Stockings are draped on banisters, woven into garlands and slipped on bed headboards and footboards. They are suspended from shelves, edge windowsills or are posted on doors as an alternative to wreaths.
In Anthropologie’s 2005 gift catalog, charming stockings are clipped in place with clothespins on a cord strung in front of a window. Two of the 18-inch-
long stockings are modeled after skates with wooden blades, one topped with a buttoned cuff and the other tied with ribbon laces.
Installation may be as simple as looping the stocking over a slender nail, but there are dozens of fancy hooks anchored by angels, reindeer and the like. Faux mini-topiaries, planted in gold-painted clay pots, are another attractive anchoring option featured in a Ballard Designs catalog.
There is no doubt that stockings lend a festive note and add immeasurably to a home’s holiday ambiance. Hues in the stockings can echo the colors in your home decor. A more neutral approach, one complementary to just about any decor, is to select a stocking in rich gold, silver or copper and maintain that palette in a tree decorated with lustrous ornaments and trimmed with metallic ribbons or beads.
Beyond monograms, personalization might include themes showing off favorite hobbies, such as gardening, golf, cooking or travel – and, of course, the stocking can be filled with gifts to reflect those activities.
It’s doubtful that stockings first associated with St. Nicholas were fancy or colorful. The legend is said to date to the sixth century. It centers on a widowed nobleman who lost his fortune and ability to provide dowries for three daughters. St. Nicholas helped the man by dropping three small packets of gold coins down the chimney, and the packets settled into woolen stockings the girls had hung to dry.
In the 19th century came the now-familiar reference in the classic poem, “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” attributed to Clement C. Moore in 1822: “The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.”
There’s little reference to style or even colors of early stockings, but eventually red and green came to be favored as traditional Christmas hues.
Of course, unorthodox color combinations like tangerine and orchid diamonds on a stocking with jester-curled toes are as much eye candy as pretty wrapped packages under the tree. The orange-and-purple sock actually stands up on the floor when stuffed, as featured in Better Homes and Gardens.
But the familiar red-and-
green motif needn’t look dated or tired. Old standbys, such as simple red and white stockings, can come off as fresh as boughs of evergreens by changing elements of the setting each year. Take a cue from Pottery Barn, which features red and white stockings trimmed simply with bells or embroidered snowflakes.
They take on a sophisticated look when hung from a white mantel decked with frosted red candles, fresh greenery and glass containers filled with red and silver ornaments. Sparkling silver stars suspended at different heights from the ceiling make the vignette all the more enchanting.
Whether your stockings are simple or opulent, purchased or homemade, you can create dazzling memories as you deck the mantel or another favorite spot. And personalizing the stockings will turn them into keepsakes to be enjoyed for generations to come.
