Well, for the last instalment of this 613 Holiday Special, the topic was Holiday Traditions. So, I’m going with my family’s favourite tradition, the Christmas stocking.

Turns out that there are no written records of the actual origin of the Christmas stocking, but there are popular legends that exist. This is one of the favourites that is told :

A long time ago, there lived a poor man with his three very beautiful daughters. As he had no money to have them marry, he worried about them. Saint Nicholas was passing through his village and heard talk of the girls. He wanted to help, but knowing that the poor man would not accept charity, he thought he’d help in secret. So, after it got dark, he threw three bags of gold through one of their open windows and they landed in their stockings that were hung by the fire to dry. When the family awoke the next morning and found the gold they were overjoyed, as you can imagine. The girls got married and lived happily ever after.

This legend led to children hanging stockings or putting out shoes to await gifts from Saint Nicholas. Sometimes the bags of gold in the story are changed to gold balls, and this led to the tradition of putting oranges in stockings to represent the gold balls.

This is my childhood stocking that my Mom bought and embellished with the figurines and glitter when I was a baby.

When had my first child I thought I would carry on this tradition and made us all stockings customized with embroidered names at the top. We use these every year and even my kitties get their own stockings. Does your family embrace this tradition?

Time to go and check out the other fabulous Holiday Traditions from the 613 bloggers. Thanks so much ladies it was great to collaborate with you all. I loved reading all your posts!