Christmas Stockings

In the 1950s, Mom and Dad started sending Christmas cards to friends and to Dad's dental patients. They did this for years and people are always mentioning these cards to all of us and sometimes giving us copies of them. Just a couple of years ago, someone rang the doorbell and handed me several Christmas cards that he had found while cleaning out his mother's house in Cliffside. That was really a thoughtful gesture and I am thrilled to have them.

In most of the Christmas cards, we are dressed in our pajamas standing under our Christmas Stockings. Mama made alot of our clothes back then and she also made our Christmas Stockings.

The stockings are made out of red outing trimmed at the top with little white balls. Our names are written in white rick rack. She sewed on a green wreath, a green Christmas tree decorated with sequins and on the toe she had sewn Frosty the Snowman. She still has these stockings hanging over the basement fireplace in Lattimore. They stay up all year. Truly.

Sometime in the late 1980s, David and I were driving home from a Carolina Football game when we stopped in Burlington at an outlet mall. I wandered in to an Eagle's Eye outlet and saw a rack full of identical Christmas pajamas. Without any hesitation we bought five pairs of pajamas and headed home. I called each of my sisters with an idea to have a picture of us in the pajamas standing under our Christmas stockings as a gift to Mama and Daddy for Christmas that year. Everyone was on board immediately and someone came up with the idea to try to do it in front of the fireplace in our old house in Lattimore. Never mind that we didn't know the person who lived there. After much discussion, we also determined that the only day we would all be together to take this picture would be Thanksgiving Day.

We found out that our old house was owned by a guy named Chris Cook so one of us called him and asked if we could do it. He said sure. Then we asked if we could do it on Thanksgiving Day. Miraculously he agreed. So someone called professional photographer Steve Martin and asked if he would take the picture on Thanksgiving Day. Miraculously Steve also agreed. These guys were good sports.

We wanted to keep this little project a secret from Mom and Dad so we could surprise them on Christmas Day. So on Thanksgiving Day, all five of us were at Mom and Dad's house and then we all disappeared to go take the picture. Daddy cannot stand to be left out and word had it that he was pacing around asking where everybody went! And of course, Mama had no idea where we were either. Our husbands knew but they weren't about to let on.

To add to the drama, it was raining and thundering and lightning that day. Oh, and Chris Cook was in the middle of renovations and only had spotlights for lighting. So Chris and Steve left their warm, dry homes on Thanksgiving Day to come into a cold, dark house and take pictures using spotlights of 5 girls in their pajamas. Steve joked that the Sheriff might show up any minute.

Libby and Penny had borrowed our stockings from Mama's and also a few candlesticks and some greenery to try and duplicate the setting from the 50s.

So the picture was taken and we had it framed with two of the original Christmas cards. We presented it to Mom and Dad on Christmas day that year and they loved it. Dad had an office at the Round Up and he wanted to hang the picture there. Shortly after that the Round Up burned to the ground. The building was destroyed and we lost a lot of inventory. But the first thing Daddy thought of was that picture and he was very emotional that it was gone.

Thankfully, Steve made another copy of the picture, we found more copies of the original cards, had it all framed and gave it to them again. Those stockings that Mama made long ago really are the gift that keeps on giving.