by Jane Allyson

Created on: August 05, 2009   Last Updated: August 06, 2009

When I was a small child my mother used to save her old pantyhose and stuff them with gifts at Christmas for us. On Christmas Eve we would hang our stockings on the post at the end of the bed and Mom would call up to us and say "go straight to sleep and Father Christmas will fill your stockings!" For what seemed like hours we would constantly check our stockings to see if the jolly old Santa had been to us, and eventually we would drop off to sleep.

For many a Christmas me and my exited sisters used to wake up in the early hours of the festive morning and grope about in the dark for that wonderful stocking filled with goodies, and sweets and all sorts of trinkets that Santa had left for us. The sheer fabric of the pantyhose clung and molded itself to the shapes of the wonderful secrets enclosed, and what fun we had, guessing what we would find in our stockings in the morning!

Many years later after reminiscing about the 'good old days' me and my sisters all agree that for a long time as children, one of the most exciting things for us at Christmas, was to feel all those different shapes through the stocking in the dark and how unbearably long it seemed for the morning to come and it become light enough to see what we had been given.

And when we had taken our laden stockings into Mom and Dad's bedroom to show them what we had been given, we would drag our elongated hosiery down the stairs with a bump - bottom heavy with the apple, orange and walnuts that Mom always stuffed the heel with.

When Christmas was over and done with, Dad would appropriate our stockings from us and recycle the fabric. He found them very useful to strain paint through and would secure the taught material with a piece of sturdy string.

After Dad had dug up the summer bulbs, he would pop them in a stocking and dry them out in the shed, hanging them up high, secure from damp and mice.

Stockings could still be used for fun too. Does anyone remember using a stocking over the head to scare the neighbors with on Halloween? We run around like bank robbers that night, with squashed, eerie features and our coats over our heads. It was the best Halloween yet and our costumes had cost Mom nothing.

My parents never wasted a thing. The lavender from the garden was collected every year and Mom used to place a small amount in a piece of stocking and tie a bright ribbon around the sweet smelling ball and hang it in the closet.

All the pantyhose that remained unused was placed in a ragbag and given to Granny. She used to knit a lot of soft toys and found the fabric handy to use as stuffing. Years later as I unearthed old toys that she knitted for me as a child, I smile to myself as I see tiny pieces of old stocking poke through moth eaten holes.

Our elders were certainly experts at recycling, we could still learn a thing or two from them.

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