{"id":11304,"date":"2014-10-05T23:24:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-06T05:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/secrets-of-great-stocking-stuffers\/"},"modified":"2014-10-11T13:23:16","modified_gmt":"2014-10-11T19:23:16","slug":"secrets-of-great-stocking-stuffers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/secrets-of-great-stocking-stuffers\/","title":{"rendered":"Secrets of Great Stocking Stuffers"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a man there isn\u2019t much I can do right when it comes to Christmas<\/a>. According to my wife I can\u2019t cook. According to my daughters I can\u2019t shop. And according to my wallet I\u2019m Scrooge.<\/p>\n

While I have neighbors \u2014 all men, by the way \u2014 who deck the halls with billions of lights<\/a> on every bush and rain gutter my house is conspicuously dark every Christmas<\/a>. <\/p>\n

That comes not from being Scrooge-like but rather an unfortunate lack of talent with with tools and ladders. <\/p>\n

Besides, my wife says I once tried to put the plugged in toaster in the dishwasher and with that kind of mentality I\u2019m automatically banned from messing with the likelihood of extension cords and the wet outdoors. <\/p>\n

(Personally, it was a good gag. I used the same kind of thing to get out of mowing the lawn with my mother. She would only trust me with a broom). <\/p>\n

My specialty when it comes to Christmas<\/a> is stuffing the stockings. That\u2019s my job. <\/p>\n

Santa<\/a> began his tradition of giving by stuffing stockings, by the way. Back in his original day there were no Christmas<\/a> trees. Just stockings hung by the chimney with care. So that\u2019s where he put the stuff \u2014 the good stuff. <\/p>\n

Stockings these days are mostly an after thought. Like the timeless manual can opener or, dare I say it, useless husband, stocking stuffers just don\u2019t get the respect they deserve. <\/p>\n

All the big gifts of Christmas<\/a> get festively wrapped in boxes with ribbons and bows, to shine underneath the glorious tree. The stocking only gets hung on the mantel, there to sit mere inches from burning hell until at the last minute it is pulled down and filled with mostly worthless stuff \u2014 the unsexy things of Christmas<\/a>. <\/p>\n

I did a little information poll of some neighbors of what they got in their stockings last year. It was a sad story of socks, money, gift cards, toothpaste, and cheap movies. <\/p>\n

Why can\u2019t we put more imagination into the old stocking? <\/p>\n

As a kid the stocking was the first thing I could go through in the dark of Christmas<\/a> morning while I waited for the rest of the house to get their butts downstairs to get to the loot. It was my favorite part of Christmas<\/a> because the stocking always had things that were unwrapped and usually there was something I wasn\u2019t expecting inside that I couldn\u2019t wait to use. <\/p>\n

Years later, of course, I learned the secret behind all that. My old man did the stockings. He wouldn\u2019t let my mother touch it. And he told me, for the sake of both my marriage and of Christmas<\/a> mornings for years to come it had better be a duty I took on myself, too. My father was a sage. It was advice I embraced and have never regretted. <\/p>\n

Take, for example, the stocking of my 16 year old son just last year. Most of his friends got the usual. But he got firecrackers. <\/p>\n

I knew where he was coming from, you see. I knew he\u2019d be up at four a.m. on Christmas<\/a> morning and wanting his family going. Knowing that he would go to his stocking first \u2014 every kid does, by the way \u2014 I filled it with several strings of firecrackers, some matches, and some new slippers for his feet when he went out back to set them off \u2014 at four in the morning. <\/p>\n

He did exactly as predicted. He lit the firecrackers and woke us all up \u2014 and everyone in the neighborhood \u2014 and we all rushed down stairs to see his rosy cheeks flush with excitement and smiles as he said, \u201cMerry Christmas<\/a>! Let\u2019s get started!\u201d. Totally worth it. <\/p>\n

You see, that\u2019s the secret to great stocking stuffers: surprises. A stocking stuffer should inspire creativity, create enthusiasm, garnish a giggle, or maybe draw a tear. You can\u2019t do that with socks and toothpaste. <\/p>\n

So my plans for stocking stuffers usually start early in October. I am listening intently to the whole family for clues. I make lists and check them twice. <\/p>\n

Usually about this time we start talking Christmas<\/a>. But nothing get talked about more in our house than the stocking stuffers. Everyone knows it is \u201cSanta\u2019s\u201d job to stuff the stockings. And that that is why they so look forward to it. <\/p>\n

One year Santa<\/a> stuffed plane tickets in my wife\u2019s stocking. She wanted to see her Mom and she knew there was no way in the world I was going to endure yet another trip to my mother-in-laws in the dead of winter. But Santa<\/a> knew and took care of it. <\/p>\n

My college-age daughter \u2014 home for Christmas<\/a> and prone to rolling her eyes at the excess that she considers Christmas<\/a> as she goes through the moralistic years of young adulthood \u2014 got treated to a little lesson from Santa<\/a>. Her stocking was filled with what a four year old might receive: bubbles, chewing gum, jacks, jump ropes, etc. Nothing much but everything important. She called me Daddy that Christmas<\/a> for the first time in years \u2014 and spared us all the lectures on Christmas<\/a> morning. Santa<\/a> is a sage, too. <\/p>\n

The stocking stuffer cannot be overlooked. It cannot be done last minute and be done right. It takes a lot of thought. Money is always the last thing to consider when it comes to the stocking stuffer. Love<\/a> is always the first. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a man there isn\u2019t much I can do right when it comes to Christmas. According to my wife I can\u2019t cook. According to my daughters I can\u2019t shop. And according to my wallet I\u2019m Scrooge. While I have neighbors \u2014 all men, by the way \u2014 who deck the halls with billions of lights […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","iawp_total_views":8,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christmas-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}