Advent Calendar--Christmas Stockings

Growing up we never had special Christmas stockings.  We always just hung up a clean sock.  Usually we used one of my dad's socks since his were the biggest.  We didn't have a fireplace so we hung them from pieces of furniture in the living room.  It seemed that every year there was an orange, a ball, a toothbrush and then different items according to our age and interests that filled our stockings.
With my own daughters we got special Christmas stockings.  We put names on the stockings to identify whose was whose.  My third daughter was born just an hour and a half after Christmas.  She was sent home with a stocking that was big enough for a newborn to fit into.  Of course that was the stocking she would like to hang since it held so much more. We hung stockings on a wood-burning stove in one home, from a book shelf in another home and from the fireplace in out last home.  One year we forgot the stockings on our trip to my parent's home.  We made a quick visit to a thrift store and purchased stockings for each family member.

Even though my daughters are all adults now they want to hang stockings for Christmas.  Stockings are a fun part of Christmas since there are always goodies to eat and useful or fun items in each stocking.
I don't know what my grandparents or great grandparents did about stockings, but I imagine if they hung stockings it was maybe one their dad's socks they hung up.  It would be interesting to see what they did and what they got in their stockings.