3.5 Years:
OH MY GOD. I just realized something. A stocking... is like a giant sock!
OH MY GOD. I just realized something. A stocking... is like a giant sock!
Small epiphanies are the spice of life, and, when you’re
three years old, tiny epiphanies are everywhere. I was hanging Christmas
stockings when this one sudden realization really hit my daughter, who was at
that point somewhere between a toddler and a child. Who knew that a stocking
and a sock could bear such similarity?
While no one’s sure if it’s apocryphal, legend has it that there’s a good, specific reason behind the use of Christmas stockings, and it relates to the real Saint Nick of medieval Turkey. Supposedly, there was a family with young daughters who were just past puberty, which, in that day, meant that they needed to be married off quickly or find an unpleasant and dangerous job. Their father was grieving that he couldn’t cover a dowry so his daughters could go to good husbands. He would have to sell them into prostitution.
That night, the girls washed and dried all of their clothes and hung their stockings (or just plain old socks, depending on the version of the story) to dry by the fire. Supposedly, after the entire family had gone to bed, Saint Nicholas crept into the house and left gifts of gold coins—enough for a dowry—in each of the girls’ socks. They were then married off to good husbands who treated them well.
While no one’s sure if it’s apocryphal, legend has it that there’s a good, specific reason behind the use of Christmas stockings, and it relates to the real Saint Nick of medieval Turkey. Supposedly, there was a family with young daughters who were just past puberty, which, in that day, meant that they needed to be married off quickly or find an unpleasant and dangerous job. Their father was grieving that he couldn’t cover a dowry so his daughters could go to good husbands. He would have to sell them into prostitution.
That night, the girls washed and dried all of their clothes and hung their stockings (or just plain old socks, depending on the version of the story) to dry by the fire. Supposedly, after the entire family had gone to bed, Saint Nicholas crept into the house and left gifts of gold coins—enough for a dowry—in each of the girls’ socks. They were then married off to good husbands who treated them well.
The good deed was commemorated with Saint Nicholas’s Day, on
December 6th, but the commercialization and modernization of winter
holidays combined it into what we now celebrate as Christmas.
I wanted to tell my daughter this story, when she noticed that stockings hung on a mantelpiece look remarkably like socks hung to dry by a fire. But, unfortunately, I couldn’t think of a way to tell the tale in a way that censored the grim reality of dads paying men to take their daughters, to avoid working as prostitutes in the night. Maybe she’ll hear that story later, but three years old wasn’t the time for it.
I wanted to tell my daughter this story, when she noticed that stockings hung on a mantelpiece look remarkably like socks hung to dry by a fire. But, unfortunately, I couldn’t think of a way to tell the tale in a way that censored the grim reality of dads paying men to take their daughters, to avoid working as prostitutes in the night. Maybe she’ll hear that story later, but three years old wasn’t the time for it.
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