Hanging Christmas Stockings

I grew up in a house with no fireplace – no chimney – no mantel.  When it came time to hanging Christmas stockings every year, instead of reciting the line from a Night Before Christmas...

…the stockings were hung by the chimney with care.  My siblings and I replaced “the chimney” with “the window”.

That’s me on the right in 1962.  I was 3 years old. My twin sister, Carol is looking at the camera and my brother Greg is concentrating hard on the task at hand.

My dad fashioned a way to hang our stockings from the window sill in the dining room of the house I grew up in.

He cut a dowel the width of the window and placed it behind the opened sash. He tied 3 long pieces of red wire (4 when our little sister was born) from it and then closed the window to secure the rod. We hung our stockings from the wire. When the holidays were over, he would open the window, remove the dowel, wrap the wire around it and store it for the next year.

Earlier this fall, when I first saw the photo on this years cover of BHG Christmas Ideas magazine that shows stockings hung along a staircase banister, not on a mantel, it got me thinking. Thinking about hanging my Christmas stocking as a child from a window sill.

It also got me thinking I may change things up this year and better get to work. If you have not been following along. 5 other bloggers and I are sharing Christmas projects and ideas every Friday until Christmas. I have linked to their projects at the end of this post.

Since I know for a fact that Santa will fill our stockings no matter where we place them, I decided to hang them along the staircase banister.

This year I am decorating for Christmas using the color scheme of black, white, and green with lots of glitter, silver, and gold. You can see more of what I am doing, here. Of course there will be hints of turquoise in the mix

I picked out these Christmas stockings from Tiny Prints. I chose them since they are in my favorite color of green. I used garland ties to attach them to the garland that is draped over the banister.

I had each one personalized with our initials.  Tiny Prints has many fonts to choose from, but I could not settle on one font to personalize them, so I created each stocking using a different font.

In previous years, I used cup hooks to hang the Christmas stockings on the mantel in the family room. I drilled small holes under the top board.

When the holidays are over, I unscrew them and store the hooks in the stockings. Since the holes are under the board they are hidden from view.

I also ordered metal photo ornaments from Tiny Prints using photos of my siblings when we were little at Christmastime.  I placed them in between each stocking on staircase garland.

I decided since the photos were taken in the early 60’s and are black and white they would go nicely with my chosen color scheme.  You can’t see in these photos, but the ornaments are two sided.  You can use 2 photos for each ornament.

Each photo ornament comes in a gift bag and a red satin ribbon to hang it.

I liked the ornaments the way they are sold, but I added my own style in the way of silver ribbon and a jingle bell to the bottom of each ornament.

Christmas is not Christmas in my house without candles, music, glitter, ornaments, greenery, and lots of jingle bells.

The ornaments come with a hole on the top to thread ribbon or a hook through to hang them.

I used my rotary drill to make a hole in the bottom.

I used jump rings that I bought in the jewelry making aisle at the crafts store to attach the jingle bells to each ornament.

I also ordered 2 metal ornaments in color. I am going to hang these on my tree, but it is not up yet, so for the time being, I hung the ornament of my mom and dad from a doorknob.

It is one way to keep their memory alive, especially since Christmas is not Christmas without them.  I placed a boxwood sprig from the ribbon.

The other metal ornament is of my daughters when they were little.  It was made from a Polaroid photo – you know the kind you receive when you get your kid’s photos taken with a shopping mall Santa.

It was not the best resolution, but the TinyPrints designer review made sure it looked OK. It actually looks better than the original grainy photo.

How do you hang your Christmas stockings? Do you move them to a different place each year or do they always grace a mantel?

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