DIY: Christmas Stockings!

What do your Christmas stockings look like? If your family is anything like mine, you've probably had the same ones for years.

And if you're anything like my mom, you're just dying to have them replaced.

Every December it's the same. We pull out the holiday storage boxes, put up the garlands, the ornaments, the Nutcracker, our Rudolph stuffed animal (he gets weirder every year...) and, finally, the stockings themselves.

"Ugh... Why did I ever make these?" Mom asks the air as she tosses aside a jingling, red velvet sack (my stocking.)

Every year, I lovingly defend them. I wiggle my hands inside their Victorian floral-lined carcasses, rubbing the garish metal buttons together and tracing their smooth cording. I marvel at the precise stitchery (a sign of my mother's meticulousness, which she steadfastly denies in herself.) And I put them up in the traditional order, so two face one way and three face the other, all inward toward the hearth. I even permit the two imposter stockings (which have replaced Mom & Dad's) to hang alongside my brothers' and mine.

I like to think these old friends recollect something lost. That the stockings rekindle those feelings of joy and wonder which once accompanied not only the revelation of their contents, but the entire season during which they grace our hearth.

That said, I've always been curious what it would be like to create a stocking of my own. Since J and I chose to do socks this year instead of gifts, it seemed like as good an opportunity as ever to try my hand at it.

So, seeking the least probability for failure, I came up with this:

Here's how J's and mine turned out. I wish I took some photos before they were stuffed, because they look terribly lumpy here, but oh well!

Fond as I am of my handiwork, they'll never quite live up to my gaudy childhood jinglebell sock.