Christmas and Tradition

So we're all moved into our new home in Woodbury...there are a couple more boxes to go through, but for the most part, we are functioning.  The home is nice.  Not our favorite apartment...it's cheaply built, not sound proof at all, and it's chilly (questionable if the closet with an outside wall is even insulated - brrrrrr, we keep that door shut).  We're here for a year, at least, so we might as well make the best of it!  So I decorated a bit for Christmas.  To be quite honest, I don't have many shelves or a curio or things like that for Christmas knick knacks and I hate to put too many holes in the walls.  Some day, I'll decorate more, but for now the tree and the stockings are kind of my thing, plus...less to clean up at the end of the holiday season.  Though few, my decorations are special and the stockings follow a tradition.  Isn't that what Christmas is good for??  Tradition.  There are quite a few Christmas traditions that I've experienced, some have dwindled away (sadly), some are new (Justin's "Buhl" family dances around the Christmas tree while singing Christmas songs, a Danish tradition.  Fun!  I just wish the family was a tad bit bigger so we wouldn't get so dizzy...lol), some traditions aren't my favorite such as lutefisk and potato sausage (sorry Aunt Diane), but some will stick every Christmas and one of those is hanging our homemade felt stockings.  Mine was made 31 years ago by my Grandma Ruby.  She made them for her daughters, her daughter's husbands, and all of her grandchildren.  When Gwenyth was born, I made one for her on her first Christmas.  This year I got the materials to make Rory his stocking and realized that Justin was going to be left out so I made one for him as well.  I hung mine, Gwenyth's and Rory's and left a blank spot where Justin's stocking belonged for a day then I just couldn't wait until his birthday (the 19th) to surprise him that I made one for him as well.  He was so genuinely happy to see that our whole family had matching stockings!  By continuing my Grandma's crafty tradition, we've begun our own.  To top it off, they're functional and perfect for Santa's lil' surprises.  I make every stocking unique, but everyone has at least one matching decoration, a deer, a tree, a candle stick, bells, or perhaps a gingerbread boy.  I looked at my Mom and Dad's stockings to help with ideas of what and how to decorate and this year, this time, looking at Mom's stocking was a little sad.  64 years that stocking has had gifts of love stuffed in there.  I wonder...  Which makes the tradition ever more special in my heart, something that will last our whole lives and even after, our stockings will hang.  Our Christmas, tradition.