Stocking up.

'Tis St. Nicholas Day, a lovely saint day in which we commemorate a kind man's gift of gold to some poor, dowerless daughters! The gold got tossed through a window or a chimney and landed in some footwear, as per usual. A holdiday was born! (By extension, this story is also the reason for the symbol pawnbrokers use on their shops...talk about mingling god and gold...)

Anyhoo, it's also my birthday! Huzzah! More gifts for me! Over the many long years of my life, those gifts arrived in this very stocking. It was sewn by my Nana when I was very young. I have no memory of another one, and this is the stocking I still use (my bro got a coordinating one). I used to put my foot in it, just to see if it was really functional (no, turns out). Still, it was a sad year when I discovered my foot had outgrown the stocking. But it was my alpha stocking, and will be my omega stocking. I may request that it be cremated with me, simply for the symmetry of it...