Things I don't get about other people's Christmasses #3 stockings that are not stretchy stockings/socks

Stockings are generally made of stretchy material [way back in Elizabethan times they had lovely knitted ones] so why make ones that are in a sort of sock/stocking shape from non stretchy stuff that is more like an odd shaped bag? Stockings stretch and create mysterious lumps an bumps. They work well across the end of a bed - waking to feel the weight over your feet...and things don't fall out. There's a hint of sheens, shines, textures through the stocking. OK I'd better explain my stockings - original 1950s patterned ribbed stockings - wish you could buy them like that now. Long mountaineering socks can work, indeed on lean years any old sock will do. Heavy weight Falke cotton tights chopped up do quite well. You can put your hand deep down inside.

Some gold chocolate coins, a tangerine, some nuts are all to be found inside. Usually a notebook and pencil/pen - for writing down who gave you what later in the days. Things to keep children amused as parents get things sorted in the kitchen... especially as we have our presents after lunch but that's perhaps another blog entry. When we were young there was one big present. When I was five my brother and I had to go downstairs for our big present. Mine was wooden dolls house, all furnished [as the years went by I realised that my Ma had made the whole thing, we had a tiny house, lord knows where it was hidden]. There it stood amongst the magical decorations that had also appeared overnight....we would put up things we'd made and the help decorate the tree, but the whole woodland came in after we'd gone to bed. Such a transformation - traditions from both sides of my family. Then there was Susie the black doll I requested, then an alarm clock - amazing rectangle, flat, chrome design with a glow in the dark face - that I could see in the darkness of my early waking; and a watch when I was 8. On my seventh Christmas I remember the wonderful long bright coloured synthetic fibre hair ribbons in my stocking [went well with my brand new red leather look pinafore...] and the wonderful snow....

Last year [with one of the original stockings from my childhood]

Things I don't get about other people's Christmasses #2 Turkey

Turkey has never been traditional in my family - and that's looking back to my grandparents as well. Chicken was not cheap when I was younger - nor when my parents were young. They both had access to chicken meat but not roastable chicken. SO roast chicken was a treat not a regular. My father's parents were more likely to have pheasant - poached [method of acquisition not cooking - and if it's poached it's never hung, don't want to be caught out]; I believe there might even have been venison on occasion...

My parents if they can afford it sometimes have goose or occasionally duck. I have made a vegetarian pie that I found in the Woman's Journal, unspeakable years ago*. My participation in meat eating has varied over the years. Sometimes the Christmas chicken was home grown.

I'm not sure when it was that I realised there was a turkey thing going on, school I supposed, at some point. I'm sure boar's head or goose is far more traditional. Did Dickens start up the turkey fashion?
I have once had turkey for Christmas dinner, I was away from home and it was known that I'd never had turkey for Christmas so an organic, free range bird was procured.

It'll be goose and pie this year.
Here's a Christmas plate I prepared earlier, with handmade recycled paper crackers




*wheat free vegetarian pie: chestnut, apricots & chickpea stuffing balls in white wine sauce with fennel bulb, broccoli, broad beans.