SoRaiseYourGlasses

Christmas Stockings and the Night Before Christmas 

The night before Christmas is the night when the gifts are wrapped, the decorations hung and you can do no more shopping! It is sometimes felt to be more exciting than Christmas Day itself. It is hopefully a time in which you can relax and enjoy some tranquillity before the sleepless night ahead if you have children and all the preparation for Christmas dinner. It is also hopefully a time when you can reflect on the true meaning of Christmas as in the rush and panic of getting everything ready we all sometimes forget.

There are however a few things you still need to do on this special night:

Of course the night before Christmas is the last of the days of advent, and the advent calendars are all opened and spent, the pictures all revealed or the little gifts all taken, and the advent candles should now be burnt through to day 24. The waiting is almost over, but for any small child the night ahead is the longest, most restless night of the year, and longer than the whole of advent put together.

The final preparations before going to bed are to hang the Christmas stockings, and to leave a drink and a snack out for Father Christmas, and his reindeer.

There are so many different Christmas stockings but for so many once a Christmas stocking has been established as belonging to that person, nothing else will do. So whether it's a bright, brand new Christmas stocking or a tatty old one that has faded with time, the right stocking has to be found and hung in the same place as it's always been hung. Christmas stockings are traditionally hung over a huge fireplace as that's where Father Christmas would appear, but of course, many of us don't have huge fireplaces any more and so they are sometimes hung near the Christmas tree, sometimes on a mantlepiece, and sometimes on the end of the bed of the child to whom they belong. The Christmas Stocking can be filled with small but personal gifts such as a small game, perhaps a coin, an orange, some chocolate and some toys. 

Finally, a biscuit and a glass of milk, or maybe a mince pie and a small tot of whisky, and even a carrot has to be left strategically placed where Father Christmas will find it, and then it's off to bed for the long wait until dawn.........