Favorite Christmas Memories

My favorite Christmas memory...It was Jeff and my first Christmas and we went to his family's for Christmas. It was never a tradition to get stockings when I was a child. Before we opened gifts, his mom, passed out stockings. When I received mine, it was as though, I had been given the best gift ever. Everyone around me rushed thru their stockings, pulling the contents out, quickly browsing thru them and shoving the contents back into their stockings. I carefully pulled out each item, looked over each piece, indulging in the moment that I had a stocking with pieces that were carefully placed in it.....for the very first time in my life. The family couldn't understand why I was taking so long and was actually getting impatient with me for taking so long to go thru my stocking, after all, it was "just a stocking". But they had no idea how much that stocking meant to me. In all the years that I had yearned for a simple stocking and I had finally received one. Each year, I tell Jeff's mom how much that stocking meant to me. She is always fascinated by this for she, as a child always received a stocking and carried on the tradition with her children. She just assumed that this was part of Christmas. So, feeling like a child again, that Christmas was "complete" fulfilling all the years that I didn't receive the one "simple" thing that I felt was missing. Needless to say, my family wakes up on Christmas morning to stockings!! However, I believe I enjoy mine the most!! :)