 | It’s a bit of a strange one when you think about it. We hang a stocking, or a sock, from the edge of our fireplace and on Christmas morning it is filled with little gifts. Why? Why do we hang these things? All good Christmas traditions might be considered a bit odd if you sat and thought about them, but this one doesn’t seem to have its roots in any one story or be attached to anything logical that springs to mind.
There are far too many variations on the origin of the Christmas stocking tradition for anyone to claim to know the truth behind this practice. While it’s almost certain it began in Europe, there are different versions of the story depending on who you ask and where that person is from.
For example, the English version says that Father Christmas once dropped some coins while coming down the chimney on Christmas Eve. If it wasn’t for the stockings the little girls of the house had hung on the fire to dry, the coins would have slipped through, straight down the grate and would have been lost forever. From that day on the girls continued to hang up their stockings on Christmas Eve and so the tradition spread.
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