Tips - Creative Stocking Stuffers
Add a Little Spice to Your Christmas Holiday Gift Exchange
Start a new holiday gift tradition: instead of presents, swap stockings with small, token gifts instead of agonizing over what to buy everyone for Christmas.
If you and your friends, family, or co-workers exchange gifts each year at holiday time, why not change things a little and do a stocking exchange? This way you won’t have to wrap gifts or run out to buy tissue paper and gift bags. Not that there is anything wrong with these gift-giving methods, of course, but sometimes you need to liven things up. It is hard to shop for everyone and one less major gift purchase means one less thing on your holiday to-do list.
A stocking exchange allows everyone to be a little creative, and provides each participant with a memorable keepsake from the event.
How can I organize a stocking exchange?
Ask all attendees to bring a small gift and put it in a stocking of some kind. Partygoers can buy traditional red stockings with white fur trim, or knit a stocking if they are ambitious. Encourage partygoers to be creative with their presentation: they can draw on the stocking, decorate it with glitter paint, cover it with stickers, etc.
The gifts should be small unisex gifts that would brighten anyone’s day. It could be candy or a $5 gift card to a coffee shop. Ask them not to label the stockings with the name of a particular guest so gifts can be given randomly. The emphasis is not on the gift, but on having a good time.
Assign a number to each stocking. You can put a small sticker on each stocking with its number. Then place a slip of paper with that same number in a hat or bag. After all of the stockings have been hung with care (read suggestions below for what to do if you do not have a fireplace) and people have had time to admire them, it is time for the exchange. Mix up the numbers and let guests choose a number. If you want, you can have a co-host or helper present each person with their stocking.
Why do we hang up stockings anyway?
You remember that line from the old poem about the stockings being hung by the chimney with care, right? If you have a fireplace, you probably wouldn’t dream of hanging laundry out to dry there, but in times past that is just what people did. That was the only way to dry things when it was too cold or rainy to dry them outside in the sun.
Many people also believe that the tradition evolved from the Dutch practice of leaving clogs next to the fireplace on Christmas Eve. Dutch children left goodies for Saint Nick and hay for his reindeer in their clogs. Over the years, people transitioned from leaving clogs to hanging stockings and from leaving goodies to expecting them.
What if I don’t have a fireplace?
No worries. If you don’t have a fireplace, you can incorporate making one as part of the festivities. Get a large piece of thick poster board and ask artistic guests to help you draw your own mantel. Then you can use tape and thumbtacks to “hang” the stockings over the homemade mantel. You can also draw the homemade mantel before the gathering to save time.
