Stocking Fillers

Today

Very successful couple of days, getting the Christmas shopping under way. We were buying items for stockings in one shop - the cashier said, "That'll be £43.00, please. "How much?" said Paul. "Remember," I reminded him "the days when we could fill a sticking for a fiver are long since past."

In My Day

We didn't have stockings as children, for many reasons, but I was more than happy to introduce the custom into our children's Christmas experience. With the help of a mail order toy shop called !Tridias! I was able to fill their stockings with a collection of unusual and dirt cheap toys. Add a fluffy toy, satsuma and mince pie and the job was done.

I suppose for most parents there comes a moment when you know you've done your job properly. 1986 was a grim year for us with no settled home and uncertain job prospects. We came to Somerset so that I could take up the offer of the job with Flare. We were living with Chris and I explained to the girls that there'd be no stockings because that wasn't how Chris and his family celebrated.

To our great joy we found that we were able to move into our home in Stoke St Michael two days before Christmas. I explained to my sister-in-law Marilu that we would still love to celebrate Christmas with them but would move straight away into our new home.

Seeing that we would be waking in our own home on Christmas morning, Paul and I set about buying stocking gifts for the girls. On Christmas Eve they hung up their stockings and we all went off to bed.

Christmas morning arrived. "Good morning, girls!" we said "Happy Christmas! Have you opened your stockings?" "Well," they said "have you opened yours?" Ours? We hadn't hung up stockings - but there they were, hung up by Becky at four in the morning and lovingly filled with the sort of trivial gifts that two children could afford out of their pocket money.

And we've hung up our stockings every year since.

What I've never quite understood is how, in less than two days, they got into Shepton Mallet to buy this lot without our knowledge.