On Twelfth Night this past January, I wrote about the history of my family’s homemade Christmas stockings:
When the stockings were new, their only decorations were a few small, shiny gold leaves and red beads sewn on near our names. Over the years, however, we developed a tradition of pinning or sewing onto the stockings small items of importance to us: my mother’s Phi Beta Kappa key, my father’s pins from various architectural conventions, Melanie’s and my pins from music competitions and other activities.
Our tradition of adorning the stockings with ornaments, both silly and meaningful, still continues. This year, Paul’s stocking will have a new bit of silly: a small purple pin that states, “I am as furniture unto my cat.” Oh, how true.
My family’s Christmas stockings are the image for Day 6 of my Holidailes advent calendar. Pop Quiz: What’s that the donut-shaped object, with silver bell attached, hanging from the bottom of my stocking (second from the left)?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
An excellent use for those pins that get tossed into dusty drawers and forgotton at my house. I love this tradition. As to the object on the toe, it looks exactly like a piece of cat-scratching rope post that I now use to clip toys onto my Purrrniture, or I would guess it’s the mini-cow bell from an old animal farm.
The great thing about having bells attached to your stockings is that if a cat ever gets ahold of one, you’ll be alerted by the jingling before it gets a chance to do much damage.
What a great idea! Somewhere we have all these push pins from our travels. That would be a great place for them to end up, rather than in a dark drawer somewhere. Only one question…. I thought the kids would have the biggest stockings….
Kimberly,
Your quiz has not generated many responses or guesses about the donut-shaped object with bell attached. Perhaps you were overly pampered as a baby when your teeth were beginning to appear. Hint, hint.