I love the tradition of the Christmas stocking.
We had some family stay over for Christmas and the first thing I did when their arrival was confirmed wasn’t clean the bathrooms or change the sheets on the guest bed: I filled stockings for them. It’s just so much darn fun! And the best part is there are no expectations about a stocking. My nephew is a very serious and very good hockey player. A double roll of hockey tape for him, along with the requisite candy and Fisherman’s Friends. The silly little plastic orange peeler gave my orange-loving niece a grin. And I knew the magnifying glass was a hit when my brother-in-law leaned over the pot of boiling potatoes on the stove, examined them with the glass and declared that they weren’t cooked yet!
My own Christmas stocking this year yielded a bunch of delights, from hand sanitizer to Tic-Tacs to several varieties of dark chocolate (my favourite!) and a package of 4-blade, scented lady razors! I had never seen such a thing. They smell like candy, they have an ergonomically designed handle and 4 blades. Let me tell you, it’s the closest shave my legs have ever had. The first blade stretches the hair, the second blade taunts the hair, the third blade destroys the hair’s sense of self worth and the fourth blade cuts it off below the skin surface! It’s amazing how far shaving has come.
I received some wonderful gifts this year, like every year, including books that I will look forward to reading and other delightful stuff. But it’s the stocking, with its nod to the practical and wink at the whimsical, that brings to mind something Forrest Gump’s Mama used to say: “You never know what yer gonna git!”