The Stockings Were Hung...

After Aaron was born, I knew it was finally time to make a decision about our Christmas stockings. Mike and I had already enjoyed three Christmases as a married couple, but we'd spent all of them at my parents' house, so I just used my childhood stocking and Mike got some scrounged up substitution (he's not picky).

Growing up, my parents tag-teamed making our stockings. My mom sewed the actual stocking, and then my dad cross-stitched the name on the front (a labor of love, no question). With each new addition to our family, my parents would make a new stocking. I loved pulling out those stockings year after year and hanging them all in a row, anticipating what they would look like full and bulging on Christmas morning.

I knew I wanted our stockings to be similar to the ones from my childhood, so I used my mom's stocking pattern and had my dad chart out each of our names for me so I could cross-stitch them on the fronts.

The only real difference between the two groups of stockings was the choice of fabric. My mom selected a different pattern for each child: candy canes on one, little puppy dogs on another, etc. You could identify your stocking by the fabric as much as by the name on the front. But I wanted a more classic, minimalist look, so I decided to use the same green corduroy for all the boys and the same red corduroy for all the girls.

You see where this is going, don't you?

At the time, I only had one son, and I can remember standing in the fabric store, trying to mentally calculate how much fabric I needed to buy. It was tough because we didn't know how many children we wanted to have, so I felt like I had to go to my uppermost limit (well, I know we won't have more than 12 . . . I'm kidding, I'm kidding), and of course we also didn't know what our ratio of boys to girls would be. I knew I needed to get enough fabric of each color so that I wouldn't run out even if we ended up with all boys or mostly girls.

Over the years, as we've added one boy after another, the green fabric has been slowly whittled down while the red has remained virtually untouched. It turns out, I was much more serious about my minimalist look than I originally planned.

For the last couple of months, we've been anxious to find out if our new baby is a boy or a girl. My kids were all pulling for another boy, and I was just grateful that the decision was out of my hands because I didn't know which I would choose.

On December 8th, I went to the doctor's for my 20-week ultrasound. When I got home, I pulled out the corduroy and made another stocking and then wrapped it up. 

That night, the boys tore off the wrapping . . .

. . . and the room erupted in chaos: yelling and screaming and running around and jumping on and off the couch and snatching the stocking out of each other's hands.

I turned to Mike and, my words edged with sarcasm, said, "I'm soooo glad we're getting another boy."

But really, I am.