Who’s Filling Mom’s Stocking This Year?

ByKelly Keller

Every December, I host a dinner party with the same six women attending. We plan ahead for it for months, since we all look forward to it so much. It’s always a time of reflection over the past twelve months as well as a moment to express hopes for the next year.

One tradition that we’ve added in recent years is a stocking-stuffer exchange. We realized one year that many of us, as the designated busy Buyers of Gifts for the family, often go without gifts in our stockings on Christmas morning. This is a tiny thing in the grand scheme of things, but we realized that we could fill this void for one another. So we began a Favorite Things exchange—where we each bring along six of the same gift, one of our small favorite things for everyone else—and we brought along our stockings, too. After dinner, we pass our stockings around the table. Each person slips their favorite thing into everyone else’s stocking.

The favorite things are always inexpensive. We set a spending limit, so past items have been bookmarks, a favorite kind of pen, a favorite tea or hand soap. One year we all received handmade mug cozies from our resident crocheter (she planned well ahead!). It’s just a little remembrance of one another for the year ahead; a way to think of your sister when you use that pen or that lip balm.

I was wondering if you, readers of this newsletter, might enjoy doing a gfit exchange for one another. Would it help your heart in December to receive a thoughtful little package in the mail from another reader here? So many of you enjoy similar books and handmade things…can you befriend another reader and send them a little something?

Let’s be honest…very few of us need another item on our to-do list this time of year. But some of you might enjoy this practice. So here’s what we’re going to do, like the true lovers of democracy that we are. We’re going to take a vote. Please let me know how you feel about this idea below. You won’t hurt my feelings if you vote against this idea, and either way you are free to adopt my tradition mentioned above!

Thanks for your input…and I’ll let you know what we decide.

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Kelly Keller
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