a tale of christmas stockings, or lack thereof

there are very few things that will get me out of a warm bed on a day off.  usually, it's the baby stirring that brings me to put my feet on the floor...but with him sleeping in until almost 10:00 yesterday morning (yahoo!), i awoke around 9:00 and visions of sugarplums dancing around all of the after-christmas online sales appeared in my head...and that, my friends, was reason enough to gets to stepping!

first stop - garnet hill (and as it were, only destination).  now, i was shopping for only one item inparticular.  my husband, known here as rbb, LOVES christmas stockings.  i don't know what it is about the thrill of those oversized socks hung with care from a mantle, but he seems to really have them on the brain in december.  me, i would totally forget about them (and have...the past two years) without his constant reminders of "when are we going to get some stockings?  why don't we have any stockings??" to put a little bug in my ear.  oh, and i should add that we do not have a fireplace in our current home - i think that makes it easy to forget about stockings.  and i always do mean to buy them, i really do.  it's just that i'm not going to pay full price for them, which means i will not purchase them before december 25th.  and then on the 26th (or 28th when i get around to thinking about buying some) when everything is marked down, a lot of times the selection is really picked over AND sometimes it's just not that much fun buying something that you can't even use for another 11 months.  and i have this vision of perfect and cute stockings all matching and hanging by the fire that we use year after year...i can't tell you what they look like, i can only say i'll know them when i see them.

so what generally happens is that we don't have any stockings for christmas morning so rbb buys them on the 24th at cvs or maybe a gas station, from the way they look.  i can't be sure.  and then on the 26th, i hide them deep, deep within our holiday decor boxes - so deep that we can't find them the next year (which is the mission).  and then the cycle repeats itself, and was no different this christmas morn.  mine was ballerina pink and white, the thinnest felt i've ever seen.  it was actually see-through.  rush's was green with snowmen appliques generously affixed all over it.

but no more!  after i hopped online the morning of the 26th, i was so pleased to see these on garnet hill's sale rack.  they're made by hable construction (which is the brand i've been wanting stockings from all these years).

aren't they cute?  i'm going to get our names embroidered across the top.  maybe in all caps, not sure yet.  they were on MAJOR sale - which of course, i loved.  originally $48, marked down to $9.  NINE DOLLARS!  they come in ivory and cranberry - perfect, i thought - i'll do ivory for girls and cranberry for boys.  and at that price, i can go ahead and just buy them for our whole family.  and a few to come?  is that crazy?  i didn't have time to think - you just never know when the rug will be pulled out from under you while online shopping.  that happens to me all the time at j.crew - i'll be perfecting my cart, taking time to select a good mix of items and go to check out - "oh, sorry.  this item is no longer available."  i decided no one will come between me and my perfect, bargain, color-coordinated stockings.

so i bought six.  yeah.  we have one child and currently are running a stocking quota of three.  three ivory and three cranberry.  i think rbb was a little confused, but at least we got some stockings, right?  and i'll be ready when the stork comes, even if he's armed with triplets...

xoxo