Forties File Friday -- Stockings...

PAIGE

Socks and chocolate gold coins, sometimes batteries... (which just meant you were likely getting something cool that would need them)

VALERIE

Loved the tangerines and peanuts. We'd all sit around and look through our stockings, while discarding peanut shells in a big metal bowl. My Mom loved to put little goodies with our names on them: pencils, magnets, key chains, ornaments, etc.. Sometimes a fun, inexpensive piece of jewelery as well.

NOVA

I loved that our stockings were delivered to our beds for us to dive into when we woke up. Enjoying every item as it came out of the stocking in the dim light of a street lamp would often be the first look at the stocking.. then another look when the dumped out items were hastily tucked back to transport to others sleeping areas to share in each others treasures and then a final transport to M&D's bedroom where everyone would meet to share stocking contents before being allowed to make the excited entrance to the downstairs living room.

A few chocolate gold coins, a mandarin orange, for many years an individual box of treat cereal, and some toiletries like chapsticks or nail polish, lotion or hair items. Many other items over the years but nothing that stands out in my mind.

JOHN

Christmas Tradition that I love!

I love the Christmas Oranges... I always did as a kid! They were so special because little fingers could peel away the skins so easily. The first time I ate them was at Grandma and Grandpa's home on Lulie Street. They called them Jap Oranges, They did not have any thing at all against Japan but that is what they were called. Grandma told us that the ones that came from Japan were much more tastier, easier to peel and had no seeds. One year I was talking loud enough for Santa to hear. He must have heard because we got them in our stockings! I was so happy. I am even happier now that I live in Japan. The oranges are beautiful and when I see the elderly working in the fields it reminds me a Christmas Elves.

I also love the special story that goes with these Oranges and why they are a Christmas Orange. I tell my children as part of our Christmas tradition and would love it if we could all share this for our families too!

MUM

Christmas stoicking..

No commercial stockings in my day……felt, colourful, festive, and red and big!!

We put up a sock ! an ordinary everyday sock . The tradition was to put up our own ordinary everyday sock! ( You've seen the olden days illustrations of socking hanging on the chimney from the mantle.. the mum and dad sizes an d then the declining sizes of the children's…Not like now when everyone has the same size sock..

However, when I was little we would
put up our dads sock.. I imagine those that had farmer for a
Dad, would have the bigger longer work socks to hang, but I
had a government office working dad so I had the regular
men's dress sock.. truly , an ordinary every day sock.

(I would of course, choose the tallest sock

(Imagine your dads church or dress sock and you'll realize
that Santa wouldn't have nearly as much of a task to fill those stocking..
that he has now! Santa had a basic routine.

The first thing to go in the toe of the e stocking was
a ''jap' orange as they were called... Only in December could
you buy the Asian orange and it wasn't from china! .....an d was
a little different than the mandarin oranges that we get now..
it was such a treat .. it was as sweet it was seedless and it was
i easy to separate into sections.. ! and most of all ..those features were so ''unique to us at Christmas. They were new on the international food import scene….. not a practice until shortly after the end of the war when Japan entered more fully the world trade.

The nickname during the war for the Japanese was "the Japs. Thus the name for the orange.. It was not imported into the U S at that time…so it was indeed a unique treat. To this day I hear the Chinese mandarin oranges called Jap oranges !

( My first trip to Japan as an adult…. Was a delight for me to see the real Jap oranges in the open market… just as they had been in my child hood..

Again I digress..

The next thing that would go in the stocking (sock) would be
nuts... straight from the wooden bowl on the coffee table !
at least 2 walnuts and many filbert nuts .... all still in the
shell..

This would of course over- fill the foot .

Then, would come a little tree decoration.......the leg of the sock would have always a small tin Japanese wind up toy.. a little bird that hopped.. or
some animal that crawled or a little tine car with poorly rotating wheels.. (Post war, Canada and the U S would send shiploads of old tin cans to Japan, and they would ship back coarsely made colorful tin toys.) again I digress.
The sock now nearing the top would have some of the hard unwrapped ''Christmas candy'' that had pieces stuck together in a clump.. Then sticking out the top would be the candy cane! !(see the candy cane history….all white for nearly 250 years until early 1900's when peppermint striping came into vogue… It was the automation brought in by Henry Ford and his cars that facilitated the machinery for this striping innovation.)

Nothing in the stocking was really significant as i don't remember a specific. The treat was in the food items, the fun was in getting together with others and playing on the wooden floor with the wind up toys..

Oh yes I remember when the tradition started that I had 2 new pencils for school !
Our family tradition wasn't, as in the Christmas book drawings,
that showed.. stockings hanging on the fireplace >
but ours were ''hung'' at the end of our beds... I never
questioned our deviation from what artists thot
traditional.. That was just in print.. I assumed , just as I assumed that everyone in real life , hung their stocking to the end of their bed..
A large pin was used to anchor them to the top blanket..
In the morning we would find them filled and grope in the
dark to guess what was there by feel ! I don't know why we
considered it necessary to do it n the dark.. We didn't get up to turn on a light... Maybe it was just so early that we didn't want to be detected as being up.. After the stocking discoveries.. we'd go down stairs to the tree... I
don't remember mum and or dad getting up at that unearthly
hour... I remember enjoying Santa's loot just as he left it..
lots of look look looking.. don't remember playing or
handling anything.. Just look look look and assess what was
there..

Interestingly I don't remember asking for anything for Christmas.. no
requests, just anticipation of surprise.. and was always
surprised.. always delighted ... Now , even tho as I look back to the later years, we did ask Santa for something specific, so I guess that we did make requests. Certainly not a list !

Now..for my most memorable gifts..
children stationary.. which I promptly used to send out thank
you letters to aunts an uncles..

a matching towel and facecloth. American and cutting edge.
a doll an d buggy one year.. roller skates another ..

I remember a small tea set made of glass . no plastic sets yet !

and then the year of the bunny...A bunny named "bunny" that some 60 years
later now, is a sought after collectors item...and still exists. !

One final memory , one year that is not to thought of as greedy, or to be interrupted as a desire for
more...but was simply an observation that bought forth a logical
question ... I remember after all the tree was
done.. i looked
around and then with not ungrateful eyes…………
wondered .. aloud.... Santa didn't leave anything for mum an d dad and mum and
dad.. didn't give gifts to anyone.. Was Santa soon to be dethroned!?? !

the year that Santa....expecting credit.. was soon indeed dethroned. !