Christmas Stockings

Growing up, my family had the tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve after we were all cleaned up, in our pajamas and ready for bed. It was a way of keeping us all quiet so we would quit pestering our parents about opening presents. And then, on Christmas morning, when we would wake up way too early for my folks, they took to letting us open our stockings which were usually stuffed with interesting goodies. That would keep us occupied for awhile. The hardest part was keeping my brothers from eating all their candy before breakfast. My husband's family had their own traditions too, some of which differed from mine. So we got to have fun comparing traditions and making up our own.

My Christmas rose that my husband picked out for me.

I was so tickled to find it was duel-colored.

On Christmas Eve {or the day before}, we opened our stockings. We hadn't let each other look in our own stocking once we started stuffing them so we got to surprise each other with the contents.

I'd had a little too much sugar that day and was having fun, so I made an overly excited expression with each new goody I pulled outta my stocking. In this picture, I have green apple flavored chapstick. Green apples are my favorite.

We both really like butterscotch candies so even though they were in my stocking, he knew full well he'd get to help me eat them.

One of the biggest surprises in the stocking was a wonderful poem, handwritten and decorated by my husband. I loved it! He doesn't usually write poetry so when he does, it's extra special.

His card was very romantic and sweet.

After he'd forced me to open my stocking, he couldn't escape fast enough and was therefore forced to open his, poor man.

I didn't take pictures of his stocking contents; I was having too much watching him open them. He got several random things {like his pocketknife he's had for years} mixed in among his presents, which included a fruit punch candy stick {he loves fruit punch; I think he doesn't realize it has pineapple juice in it, which he doesn't like}, a very big peppermint candy stick, some chapstick, something else, and the Christmas tee ornament pictured here. He really liked it; hence why he took the picture and later put it up on the wall instead of boxing it up with the rest of the Christmas stuff.