Some people may claim that the tradition of hanging stockings comes from old Norse or European legends involving Father Christmas and reindeer.
There might be something to that, however irrelevant it is to parents today. Because the actual reason parents have Christmas stockings is sleep. A Christmas stocking, done well, is worth at least an hour of sleep on Christmas morning.
The kids can wake up at the crack of dawn if they please, and they can unload their stockings on their bed, eat the candy, play with the simple toys and generally distract themselves for an hour before mom and dad have to haul themselves out of bed.
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Some people put up fancy, decorative stockings, especially if they have a fireplace. This is totally understandable, especially if the stockings are lovely heirlooms.
But once again, this does miss some of the point. Christmas stockings (and the search for them) make up one of the parent’s prime tools for luring kids away from their presents and bestowing still another hour of calm in the home. On Christmas Eve, make the kids go on a hunt for the largest sock they can find. This takes up at least an hour that would otherwise be used for begging for presents. Then the kids can label their socks and leave them outside their doors or dangle them unattractively on the fireplace. In the morning, they awake to find some weary soul has filled the socks with treats. Tip for the weary soul in question: Don’t forget to fill the toe of the sock with an apple or orange. It takes up a lot of space.
