New Traditions this Year - Stockings
So welcome to the last post of 2019. I hope this New Years finds you celebrating the year that was, and anticipating the year that will be. I'm having a very Circle of Life moment now, and part of that is this holiday season saw many of my holiday traditions reinvented in new ways - which is what, in my opinion, traditions are best at.
I was given a Christmas stocking when I was born, and its the same pattern that was used to make the ones that were given to my cousins and my sister. I had one grandmother who was very skilled and talented with her yarn work, and so it always seemed natural that the Nana made the stockings.
When I married Mike, he didn't come from any such tradition - his stocking was literally a clean one from his Dad's dresser. At the time that we were married, all I could find were Bucilla kits with sequins and felt, and that's what we had when we were a family of four for many years. I still can't knit anything.
By the time that we began to get daughters-in-law, I had become a quilter, and I discovered that they make stocking patterns. All the stockings I have made have come from Eleanor Burns book, Christmas Quilts and Crafts. I have gotten more mileage from that book than any other book in my library.
So, now that I am the Nana, Eleanor and I made more stockings - a sort of continuing the tradition. In my case, each of the stockings is quite unique...and fits (as best as I can tell) the kids personalities.
Had is my only granddaughter, and her stocking came from a pieced strip set which just happened to fit the template for the stocking perfectly. A green stocking! I used my Cricut Maker to cut the tree and the lettering on her name, and trimmed the tree with white buttons - this was when she was just beginning to be fascinated with the buttons. The stocking isn't quilted, but it is lined, and durable.
Colby's stocking was easy to come up with a pattern for. I've never met a little boy who loves to wear plaid like his dad - and his papa - as much as this kid, and this one is going to be a foodie for sure. Just like his dad. The gingerbread men got a little puffy paint icing on top, but like Had's...this one is strong
This year brought new additions, and as I mentioned above, new traditions. We held our celebration at the home of my son and my daughter-in-law. This was their season, and with three littles, it makes a lot of sense. I had asked them about continuing to do the stockings, and they said that in our family, we can continue to do Papa and Nana stockings. I remember being the one who inherited Christmas so many years ago, and I always knew that there would come a time when it would pass. This was the year.
So I set off for the scrap box (if you remember the post from a couple of weeks ago, when I learned just how much Christmas fabric I didn't know I had - that was because this project was going on in the background. And I didn't want to post pictures until the kids had seen them. Henry is 11 months, and Wesley is just over 6 - so they don't as yet have much of an understanding about what this is about. But the scrap box didn't let me down - they are separate, but similar.
I do believe that I'm at the end of the stocking run, but it's been a lot of fun. Of course, I can always make more.