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| Christmas Carnivals » Christmas Stockings » History of Christmas Stockings |
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History of Christmas Stockings |
Christmas Stockings are an integral part of Christmas Holiday traditions. The custom of gifting Christmas Stockings, as Christmas or holiday gifts are not a recent development .It has had a longer lineage than we can ever think of. How Christmas Stockings came to be regarded as a hot favorite is shrouded in mystery.
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Myths and tales explaining the origins of Christmas Stockings are many. But the most accepted legend goes like this.
A kind nobleman squandered all his wealth and property when his wife expired due to an illness and left him three daughters. So pathetic was his condition, that he had to move to a peasant’s cottage and lived a life of misery. He did not even have enough booty to get his daughters married. Generous as he was, St Nicholas decided to help them out but anonymously. One night he rode up to their house and having discovered that all had fallen asleep, he quietly dropped three pouches of gold coins down the chimney and they landed on the stockings that the girls had hung up by the hearth. The next morning the daughters were overjoyed with the gold coins they found inside their stockings as it was sufficient enough for them to get married and they lived happily ever after.
Even today, children all over the world celebrate this day by hanging their stockings near the fireplace. Most of the countries follow similar traditions with minor variations. In France and Hungary, kids keep their shoes by the hearth or on the windowsill; in Holland they stack their shoes with hay and carrot for the horse of Sintirklass.
So kids, don’t forget to hang your Stockings by the hearth, for you never know what your boon in disguise is going to be like.
For more information on History of Christmas Stockings log on to our site at
Christmas Carnivals.
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