The Stockings Were Hung…

We have lived in our house for eight years, and every year as we decorate for Christmas I hang a stocking along the stair rail for each person living in the house.  In those eight years, we have had twenty different names on those stockings, names belonging to seventeen Americans, three internationals, two babies, two children, one teenager, three single adults and six married couples.

I only have eleven stockings, the largest number ever living here at one time, so all of them have fat, glittery letters that attempt to cover up the previous owner’s name. But there was no longer any decent way to write over the older names this year. I had to turn them around and start over.  I wrote on and hung five stockings yesterday – one for me and one for Jeff, one for each of the boys, and one for Sissy.

Tonight, instead of sitting back and enjoying those five stockings, I’m currently staring at only three.  Ezra filled up Zach’s with “treats” that Zach did not appreciate.  Zach’s stocking fell down and he retaliated by pulling down Ezra’s stocking.

Because, you know, no matter how traditionally or creatively you conceive your family, kids are still kids, and they are bound to screw up any ideas you have about special holiday traditions.

Yesterday during the tree decorating, I hoped for carols, hot chocolate, and the five us sitting down to admire the lights and listen to Jeff read a story.  Instead, I got whining because I was being so rude as to put dinner in the crock pot, thus stalling the start time of decorating.  That ended with Zach in bed, crying out that I was the meanest mother  in the world.

The book reading went slightly better, primarily because the boys were busy slurping hot chocolate.  Even then, Ezra kept shouting out what was going to happen next because he had read the story before.

The only child who conformed to my Norman Rockwell holiday card was Sissy.  Which makes sense, of course.  She wasn’t raised here.

While we were hosting a graduate student dinner last night, Zach bent over to whisper that he had just talked to his godmother Andy and that she was coming by to pick him up.  “Why?” I asked.

“I told her that I didn’t like what we were having for dessert, and asked if I could go to her house for dessert.”

I was mortified.  What kind of child does such a thing?  I was also grateful for Andy, whose name is on the back of one of the stockings and who loves to take the boys away for special treats and who has extra doses of patience and love.

Next year, though, I may try something new.  Do you think that all of the people who have lived here would mind to0 much if I sent the boys’ stockings to their houses for the season?  The stocking and the boys, of course.  Jeff and I will stay home with Sissy.