The Stockings Were Hung by the Chimney With Care

It’s only taken me years, but I finally have everyone’s stocking in the house finished BEFORE the holidays! I gave myself a hearty pat on the back for this. I started my handmade stocking project with recycled wool sweaters and needlefelting almost 5 years ago, and always seemed to find time to work on it in January after the winter festivities had passed. Corey’s stocking is the newest addition; the Chanterelle with a Heart of Gold, and I finished it last February so it would be packed away with the other stockings to hang up for this Winter Solstice. We were just starting to look at our farmhouse right around the time I was wrapping up working on it, and I remember imagining how it would look to have them all hanging up together on the brick hearth. I would say my stocking, and the kids’ are pretty self-explanatory as to the meanings behind them, but Corey’s has a sweet little story behind it. Right after we started dating he took me on a hike up French Pete Creek. Much to my surprise, I found a patch of magnificent White Chanterelles growing along the trail in the thick moss even though it was wintertime. He ran back to the car to get a bag we could fill with them, and as we gathered them up, I remarked, “What can I say, the mushrooms love me!” His reply to this was, “Then I must be a mushroom!” 

And here we are today, with four stockings hung by the chimney with care.