Читать книгу Christmas Dodos: Festive Things on the Verge of Extinction - Steve Stack - Страница 17

Most of us seem to keep up the tradition of a Christmas stocking. For those parents that leave the bulging hosiery at the end of their children’s beds, a stocking can buy an extra few minutes sleep whilst the kids excitedly rip open their first presents of the day at 5am in the morning. Other children find their stocking waiting on the fireplace to be opened before breakfast. Many families only open the stocking presents on Christmas morning, saving those under the tree until after lunch or dinner.

Whenever and however you do it, or did it, the chances are that you remember getting a satsuma or a bag of nuts in your stocking, or some other simple food.

No one knows quite how this tradition began. Some historians suggest that when we first started filling our stockings at Christmas, the contents were predominantly foodstuffs – the aforementioned fruit and nuts along with small confections, pies and biscuits – so any edible items in our stocking today hark back to those times.

Of course, we are now more likely to have a Terry’s Chocolate Orange in our stocking than a satsuma, or a bag full of chocolate coins rather than one of nuts, but it is pleasing to discover that some people still pop in something simple and inexpensive for old time’s sake.

Long may it continue.

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