Personalized Christmas Stockings

Most Christmas celebrations include hanging Christmas stockings. They come in all shapes and sizes so picking the right one is a matter of taste. Here are a few types of stockings to choose from.
Knit Stockings - made from a kit or from your imagination, these stockings are created with love. If you know how to knit and have the time to do it, knit stockings are often kept for years as family heirlooms.
Personalized Christmas stockings - Store bought stockings can be embroidered for each member of the family. By choosing stocking designs that complement each other, you can create a coordinated Christmas look for your home.
Pet stockings - Don't forget the pets! Increasingly, families are including their furry friends in Christmas celebrations. Pet stockings can be traditional stockings embroidered with a pet's name or a special stocking shaped like a paw or animal.
Mini stockings - Bringing home a new baby is a great reason to get a new Christmas stocking. Sometimes it's fun to get a small stocking for your small bundle of joy.

Comic Book
Quirky toys
Slippers
Movies
Event or concert tickets
Electronic Yahtzee or Solitaire
New socks
Pocket knife
Silly Putty
Nalgene Bottle
Temporary tattoos
BibleJournal
iTunes gift card
Restaurant gift certificate
Framed photo
Key chain light
Nerf ball
Funky nail polish
New markers/pen
Disposable camera
Personalized stickers
Coffee beans
Sunglasses
Stop watch
Fishing lure
Playing cards
Brownie mix in a jar
Gel frisbee

10. Fruit. If there is any food in a stocking on Christmas morning, it should be chocolate. Or candy. Or a gift certificate to Dairy Queen. Oranges, Apples or Bananas are way too healthy for a stocking and should be thrown directly into the fire.

9. Sea Monkeys. What a let down. These things are supposed to dance to music, do stunts and lounge on a beach behind their sea monkey castle. I want to rule an undersea kingdom, not clean up after creepy slimy water bugs.

8. Clip On Book Light. It's a great concept and should work as a gift. But it doesn't. Nobody has ever really used a clip light on book, ever.

7. Cell phone. I'm amazed at all of the cell phone ads around Christmas that offer phones as stocking stuffers. "Merry Christmas! I've just committed you to paying $50 a month for the next two years!"

6. Breath Mints. They aren't candy and kids don't care about their breath. Where's the fun here?

5. School Supplies. When you're right in middle of winter break the last thing you want to think about is school. No matter how cool those neon pencils look, they will just say 'homework.'

4. Fruit Cake. Yuck.

3. Underwear. One day, when you're a little older, you might appreciate getting underwear as a gift. But when you're a kid on Christmas morning, underwear (even if you really need them) just takes up valuable stocking space.

2. Your mom's favorite cd. For some reason, it's difficult for mothers to understand that just because they really enjoy Kenny G's greatest hits, their children might not share the same passion.

1. Anything in a blister pack. You know that clear plastic packaging that is impossible to open without the jaws of life. These stocking stuffers are especially aggrevating because there can be some really cool things inside, just under the plastic. But the experience of trying to rip through the blister pack armor, only to tear the instructions in half and slice open your finger in the process really ruins the fun.

Christmas stockings are a standard part of Christmas celebrations for most families. However, the time to open Christmas stockings is another story. Some people get their stocking stuffers on Christmas Eve or the first thing on Christmas morning. Some people get their stockings before opening presents, some after, and some people get Christmas stockings instead of presents. So when do you get to find out what's in your stocking?
For me, it's always on Christmas morning, after opening presents. It's great moment when you realize that even though you've opened all of your gifts, you still have some goodies to come. Our Christmas stockings were always hung in a different room (above the fireplace of course) so we could leave all of our other loot and start fresh in the living room. Our stockings usually contained a good measure of chocolate and candy, providing enough energy for an afternoon of figuring out our new toys. Perfect!

MerryStockings is a web store devoted to Christmas traditions and offering personalized Christmas stockings. Browse our Christmas stocking designs, view decorating ideas in the gallery and discuss Christmas fun at the blog.