My family of origin has a beautiful Christmas tradition.

Each of my siblings, their spouses, their children, and now their children’s children possess an heirloom Christmas stocking.

Each one is hand-knit, 26 inches long, embellished with beads and bows, and has their given name knit into the top of the stocking.

Hearing the story of how this tradition began was one of my favorite moments with my mother.

In 1954, my mother, Virginia Bermel, belonged to a then-popular Home Extension Group of community women who got together weekly, shared recipes, knit, shared household tips, and shared their lives as women and homemakers.

She was the mother of eight children with another on the way. My mother saw her friend Vi O’Connor knitting a Christmas stocking for her child during one meeting of the group. Upon seeing the Christmas stocking in progress, she expressed her desire to make them for her children. She ordered the yarn and pattern from Bernat, a company in Canada, still operating today. She purchased the Christmas Tree pattern.

Vi helped by mother by walking her through the knitting of her first stocking. Members of the group helped by starting, finishing, or making whole stockings. That first year, in 1954, nine stockings were made and kept a secret from the children. She didn’t have time to make one for herself and my father.

Dad’s Work Socks, Again

On Christmas that year, we did the same thing we did every year. Our family’s tradition at that point was to hang my father’s work socks from the banister leading to upstairs, with each stocking pinned with a child’s name. We had limited means, and a simple coloring book, crayons, and an orange were the contents found on Christmas day by her excited children.

On Christmas Eve 1954, each of her unsuspecting children put up dad’s work socks, and went to bed.

Later that night, my mother took down the work socks and hung the newly knitted Christmas stockings, each embellished with a child’s name. She filled them with the coloring books and went to bed. As my mother recounted, the squeals and looks of surprise that Christmas morning were priceless.

No picture exists of that moment. The memory in her heart lasted a lifetime.

The following year she knit stockings for my father, herself, and a son who was born in March 1955. From that point, every time a child was born (she was to have 15 children), she knit a stocking.

Later the company published a Santa pattern, which she knit for many of the spouses and grandchildren. She switched to acrylic yarn. Later, as her children grew, she developed guidelines. If a child was to be married, not just engaged or living together, then the spouse would receive a stocking the first Christmas after they were married. When a grandchild was born, a stocking would be knit and the family received a stocking for their child at the baby’s first Christmas.

Constantly Knitting

My mother taught all of her children to knit. With a large family, Christmas gifts were few and an annual gift would often be a pair of hand-knit mittens.

My mother was constantly knitting. This was often her relaxation after a long day. She would sit in her chair in the living room, and teach us how to cast on, how to knit and how to purl, and how to change colors, and how to cast off.

We all learned by making a headband with her leftover yarn for our first project, 12 stitches across and knit, knit, knit, until it was done. Most of my siblings never did much more than knit that headband, or a scarf if they were really interested (and wanted and needed a scarf!).

I enjoyed knitting, and, on and off, I kept it up over the years.

In 2003, after 43 stockings, my mother developed macular degeneration in the middle of knitting a stocking for her great grandson Matthew. I remember the day in the car. She was knitting in the back seat, and struggling with mistakes that were happening because she couldn’t see clearly, even though she had the pattern memorized.

Right then I offered to finish Matty’s stocking, and I did.

I have been making the stockings ever since. My mother died in 2010. I am on my 25th stocking and still counting.

Original Pattern, Changing Guidelines

I have switched back to this original pattern and wool yarn, buying an entire dye lot of red, green, and white to last me, I hope, until I pass this mantle on.

My guidelines changed and I did make stockings for significant others, though I admit, I have made a few for folks whose engagements were broken and I now see the wisdom of her rules.

I am about halfway through the yarn, and except for one stocking, I make them only for my immediate family, which continues to grow and multiply.

My mother’s grandchildren are still having children, and several are married.

I’ve already made several for great-grandchildren and I continue to average about one to two a year, depending on who gets married and who is having a child.

During this year’s COVID-19 crisis, I have had to rethink many things in my life.

One thing was my “rules” about who gets a Christmas stocking.

I had a hard and fast rule for many years that there would be no do-overs, as siblings asked for new ones when theirs shrunk or were damaged.

I think about this now and how silly it is.

Life, Love, The Stories of Our Lives

My mother made me a second stocking when mine was discarded by an ex during a divorce. When I remarried, she made me and my husband both stockings as a surprise. They were the last two complete stockings she made, filled with mistakes and inconsistencies, and my husband and I cherish them.

My sister Sheila, who is three years my junior, will be turning 60 in December.

She has been begging me for years for a new Christmas stocking to replace the small felted wool stocking that shrank to a sock when she washed it years ago. She wants the Santa pattern that matches her husband and children’s, a pattern I haven’t made in almost over 15 years.

One thing this pandemic has taught me is that life is all about love. With that in mind, I started Sheila’s new Christmas stocking and she will have her Santa-pattern stocking by the time you read this.

I have been meaning to type the story and the pattern for many years. I had written the story years ago when my mother was still alive and she could recount it orally. We mailed her story to Bernat in the hopes that we would get a fresh copy of the pattern(s). They did receive it, but the pattern is out of print and they don’t even have a sample in their archives.

They did publish the story in their employee newsletter and sent me a box of their current Christmas yarns, which I never used, but I still have them.

Traditions are the stories of our lives.

The Christmas stocking means so much to each of my siblings. It has become a symbol of simpler, happier times. It means a great deal when I make it for their children and grandchildren. Life happens and sometimes change can be a bitter pill to swallow. Yet, there are still many things that remain constant and help us keep our balance.

Like the song in my parents favorite musical, Fiddler on the Roof, “Tradition.”

Family.

Love.

May you be blessed with them all.

Visit zip06.com and search for the headline of this story, and click on the link in the story to get directions for the pattern, and to see pictures of the pattern.