One of the more meaningful and long-standing Christmas traditions is the hanging of Christmas stockings over the fireplace. To see a child’s eyes light up at the sight of the neatly placed stockings all stuffed with toys and candy is truly something to behold. That very fact is what makes the truth behind the origin of hanging stockings from the mantel that much harder to believe.
Today we relate Christmas stockings with toys and candy for little boys and girls, but it didn’t start out that way – or at least the practice didn’t. The tradition as we practice it today started in England in the late 13th century. When settlers traversed the Atlantic to colonize North America, they brought the tradition with them. But where did the English get the idea?
For once, this is a Christmas tradition that didn’t get its start from the church or the military (see my first three posts on ‘Christmas Fact or Fiction’). In fact this one started about as far distant from those two points as one can get. The practice was brought back to London from businessmen who visited the bordellos of Paris. As early as the 11th century it was common practice for French prostitutes to warm their stockings in front of the fire to add sexual excitement for the clients. The practice quickly migrated back to London under the “enthusiastic” insistence of those same gentlemen callers. As the act carried on from single life to married life, and eventually into family life with children running under foot (no pun intended), it slowly lost its sexual significance and became something that the entire family could enjoy (although probably not as much as the adult men enjoyed it before). From there it grew relatively quickly into the Christmas tradition that we know today.
So in the beginning, the stocking (which undoubtedly didn’t look like what we hang today) was meant to ignite the spark in a man’s eye – not a child’s. And when you think about it, it only makes sense. It’s called a stocking, not a sock. Stockings have only one true purpose – to enhance the sight of a woman’s leg. And when it comes to a man, there’s really only one thing he’s interested in finding in a stocking.
There you have the account. Now it’s up to you. What’s fact and what’s fiction? Until next time, remember the animal in all of us. J/W
