<p>Multi-tools are nice & fit into stockings. Costco has a pretty nice pair now for about $22–one has a scissors as part of it while the other has pliers & other items. My S’s favorite use for his multi-tool scissors? Trimming his toenails! LOL!</p>
<p>I fill eleven stockings including my own! It started with our own family of five and then when my brother and sister law joined us I started doing their kids because they hadn’t been doing them and since my kids were getting stockings they really did have to have them. Well, brother and sister in law needed stockings because my husband and I got them and certainly Santa wouldn’t just give stockings to one set of parents. My parents also come up for Christmas and after 70 years of getting fruit and tissues and dollar store stuff, they asked me to fill their stockings too. So now I do them all.</p>
<p>This year will be a woot! Christmas with flying monkey’s, flashlights, little fans and for the college kids, caffeinated mints from Amazon [Amazon.com:</a> Penguin Caffeinated Peppermints Mints 12 x 1.75 ounces: Health & Personal Care](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Penguin-Caffeinated-Peppermints-Mints-ounces/dp/B0002CTW50/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1260497695&sr=8-3-spell]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Penguin-Caffeinated-Peppermints-Mints-ounces/dp/B0002CTW50/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1260497695&sr=8-3-spell) and some chocolates from TJ’s. Target had Burt Bee’s chapstick (but they don’t call it that) on sale for 89 cents in August so I got 6 tubes - haven’t figured out the lucky recipients yet. Those that don’t have electric toothbrushes will get a new one with a travel cover. I haven’t gotten all of the gifts bought, but I’ve got the stockings covered!</p>
<p>Okay, a question. Do you wrap the gifts in your stockings, or have them unwrapped? We always wrap ours.</p>
<p>I wrap all the gifts in my D’s stocking, loosely wrapped in pretty Christmas tissue paper. I always get a special package just for that. Her stocking is HUGE and it stretches when filled, so all smaller presents go in there.</p>
<p>We had really pretty, old-fashioned stockings as children that my mom knit for us, with our names knitted around the top. I still have mine. I wanted one like that for my D, but I don’t know how to knit, so my sister made one for her. I forgot to tell her to make it a reasonable size! If I was advising new parents on stockings, I’d tell them to get felt ones and not huge knitted ones that stretch.</p>
<p>Wrapped, preferably tightly with lots of tape. :D</p>
<p>Can you really have too much tape? :)</p>
<p>When D & S were small, I didn’t wrap their stocking gifts. Now I do, using up all the small pieces of wrapping paper. </p>
<p>Thanks for the comments about tape – it reminded me that I need to get S a roll of duct tape for his stocking. Even as a college freshman, it’s one of his favorite things ever!</p>
<p>My sister-in-law (I mean Santa) wraps stocking presents in white tissue paper only. We usually wrap stocking things, but sometimes I get lazy or tired or I run out of paper.</p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Candy Coal, Christmas candy gift, Stocking stuffer, 5oz. Bag: Gourmet Food](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Candy-Christmas-candy-Stocking-stuffer/dp/B001FAA9WS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=gourmet-food&qid=1260535282&sr=8-1]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Candy-Christmas-candy-Stocking-stuffer/dp/B001FAA9WS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=gourmet-food&qid=1260535282&sr=8-1)</p>
<p>I started wrapping the stocking gifts (with lots of tape) when my kids were small; it kept them busy while DH and I had our first cup of coffee. We always put the tree up after the kids were asleep Christmas Eve (i.e. Santa brought it), so we really needed a caffeine fix.</p>
<p>Ho ho ho boy, do I know a few people who deserve coal in their stockings!!! Actually, I think they’d be lucky to get even that!</p>
<p>Stocking presents are not wrapped in our house. (Just sneaking the stockings into their rooms took all my energy.)</p>
<p>1Moremom–didn’t the kids miss not having a tree up before Christmas? Or did they not realize many people do?</p>
<p>You can even buy coal ornaments! [Coal</a> Gifts](<a href=“Under Construction”>Under Construction)</p>
<p>Amazing!</p>
<p>Santa still fills the stockings in our house, but it’s incredible – he chooses a lot of the same things you guys choose.</p>
<p>I don’t know how Santa manages it, but AnudduhMom always gets all the little things she wanted in her stocking every year. ;)</p>
<p>We have a smaller tree in the family room that the kids and I decorated together (with all the homemade ornaments) earlier in December. Actually, my parents did the same thing when I was a child (without a second tree) and I never questioned it. Coming down on Christmas morning and seeing the big tree and all the presents was really magical.</p>
<p>Now I put the family room tree up by myself in early December and we all decorate the big tree on Christmas Eve day. (There’s no point in staying up until four a.m. now that we don’t have any “believers”.)</p>
<p>I love, love stockings. The hardest thing this year will be deciding what to do about our sweet dog’s stocking–from Land’s End, with his name embroidered on it, and with a pocket holding a little fabric toy bone that he only chewed on Christmas Day. He died a few days after Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>A family friend knit my stocking for me when I was born. I still use it, though Santa no longer hangs it from a hook because it’s too delicate. My mom made stockings for everyone in our family–her children, the inlaws, and all the grandchildren. When we cleaned out her apartment after she moved to a nursing home, I found some ex-inlaw stockings, which was pretty hilarious. I guess she just didn’t know what to do with them. </p>
<p>My H is clueless about stockings because his family didn’t have them. (And they opened presents on Christmas Eve, too, another alien concept.) Stockings are the best part of Christmas!</p>
<p>
geezermom, that was my family’s tradition, also. I admit to feeling let-down on Christmas Day when I was growing up. To my mother, Christmas seemed to be something to just get over with. We did get nice things, but the spirit wasn’t really there, if that makes sense. </p>
<p>However, dh’s family is very different. The first time I was there for Christmas, I couldn’t believe all the fuss. I did not like fil videotaping everyone opening their stockings! And it took HOURS to open all the presents. </p>
<p>In our own family, we have stockings, but I confess to not really enjoying them, because it seems up to me to get things to fill them (although dh helps a good bit, and of course fills mine). We definitely do NOT wrap each stocking stuffer. </p>
<p>I always feel so stressed around the holiday time. I would be happy to have one less thing to do (stockings).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Geezermom- I’m so sorry to hear about the loss of your dog.</p>
<p>We have 2 stockings with our first dog’s name on them. I don’t put them up, but every year when I see them in the box, it makes me think about him.</p>
<p>Thanks 1moremom! It’s perfect!!</p>
<p>My kids have always said the stockings were one of the best parts of Christmas, They could open before we all got up. (Ever noticed who got up first changed? They (k’s) use to wait for us and now we wait for them!!)</p>
<p>Unfortunately, that put pressure on me to find stocking stuffers to make them interesting. I am out of ideas and everything mentioned on this thread I’ve done.</p>
<p>This Christmas I will get the candy, gift cards and lottery tickets. But–</p>
<p>S–NYTimes crossward puzzle book (can be rolled up). (Used to give a pair of boxer underwear w/ alcohol or beer theme until he graduated college.)
–Air freshners for his car
–??</p>
<p>D1–very tiny small light tote umbrella to carry in her bag as she embarks next year as a professional in NYC
– a gadget so that she can listen to her itouch in the car.
–a scarf rolled up.</p>
<p>D2–itunes card
–do not know maybe jewelry or scarf?</p>
<p>In the past–coins (silver or collectable), jewelry, socks, flash drives, AAA membership.</p>
<p>More ides are appreciated.</p>
<p>Calreader, can you tell me exactly which water bottle you ordered? Sounds great for my husband and one son.</p>