When I was a kid we pull out our Christmas stocking after Christmas, we were told that the three wise men will fill them up when they arrive on January 6. Originally the day of Christmas was January 6, but someone on the fourth century decided to change it to December 25th for some odd reason, my guess, his birthday was on January 6 and he was not getting enough stuff in his socks.

According to Wikipedia, “A Christmas stocking is an empty sock or sock-shaped bag that is hung on Saint Nicholas Day or Christmas Eve so that Saint Nicholas (or the related figures of Santa Claus and Father Christmas) can fill it with small toys, candy, fruit, coins or other small gifts when he arrives..” Have you seen the size of a Christmas stocking? Where is St. Nicholas going to stuff any toys in there? He is lucky if he can get the Halloween candy to fill any sock.

These are my Christmas stockings, they showed up before Thanksgiving, I was grateful because it gave me something to be thankful knowing I didn’t have to wait until after Christmas to hang them up, which meant St Nicholas will be coming around the 25th, two weeks earlier than expected, and I will have something else to celebrate on January 6 with the arrival of the three wise men hopefully with more presents and the birthday of that Pope that changed the celebration few centuries ago.

Does anybody actually puts anything inside those socks? I’m guessing, no, after all we put a Christmas tree which by the way I’m not sure either where it came from because when I was a kid we didn’t have a Christmas tree either. It was popular in other countries around the globe but it wasn’t until Hallmark introduced St Valentines Day, Father’s Day, Grandparents Day, the Easter Bunny celebration and all those other celebrations to buy more celebration cards did the Christmas tree arrived in my country at the same time Hallmark open its doors at the shopping centers. So getting back to the socks, the other night was so cold I light up the fireplace, I was trying to warm up my feet when I noticed the Christmas socks above the fireplace. I already purchased a Christmas present for my wife and it looks like it wasn’t going to fit in any of the three socks, if my wife had already purchased my present that I asked, it wasn’t going to fit in any of the socks either, the other sock was for our dog Café, he didn’t asked for anything but he was probably the only one that could actually get something in his stocking, a bone to chew, a flip flop, toilette paper, a leftover leather piece from our couch, the toiletry bag, or anything in the house that I can’t either find the matching pair or it’s already partially destroy and we don’t know how it happened.

I have not been in any of my friends houses yet to see what their stockings looks like, but I have been in my favorite watering hole and they do have their stocking hanging by the window, they don’t have a chimney for Saint Nicholas to crawl thru to leave some presents, and my guess is that if you don’t have a fireplace you have to hang the stockings by the window so he can see them and not skip your place, you also need to leave some money with the sock, obviously he didn’t count your home since there was no fireplace, therefore, he is going to need the money to buy more presents. By the look of these stockings, I’m going to bring mine from home and hang it by the window as well.

If you don’t live in Houston you need to understand that in the winter time we switch between the air conditioning and the heater weekly, every time a cold front comes thru the temperature drops and the heater comes-on and three days later the temperatures goes back up and the AC comes-on. Today it’s heater time, as I sit here by the fire place continue to ponder on the reasoning why we hang stockings by the fireplace if we are never going to stuff anything in it. As the evening got colder I finally came to the conclusion that it was for days like this we put those socks by the fire place, without hesitation I took down two and put them on my feet, they were so warm and cozy we have been trying to stuff them with toys instead of cold feet.