Stockings Filled With Love {Magic of a Childhood Christmas Series} And LINK-UP!

I am over the moon to have my good online friend, Amanda Williams, from Life. Edited. (she just happens to be hosting a rockin’ giveaway right now, btw!) share our final Magic of a Childhood Christmas series post! I found Amanda’s blog through a mutual in-real-life friend and was immediately hooked. Her poetic, lyrical, honest writing grips the heart and buoys the soul. I’m honored to have her share her memories with you today. After you read her beautiful post and leave some comment love, be sure to link up your own Christmas memory post! Let’s shine the light of Christmas out in the darkness.

Photo courtesy of Amanda Williams

When I think of Christmas morning as a child, I picture the living room of our small brick house in Mobile, Alabama. We only lived there three years – a fraction of the time spent in other homes, in other towns – but for some reason it is this room I picture. That worn carpet. Those windows. That tree. Those Christmas mornings.

We always did the Santa thing growing up. Even years after the cat was out of the bag, we woke to the surprise of unwrapped gifts displayed around the tree and stockings filled with goodies. The stockings, they are one of my favorite things about Christmas.

Sure, the one big gift that Santa brought was always a hit. But as I grew up, and even then as a child, the stockings held the most Christmas magic. They were filled with as much love and thought as candy and presents, tiny items carefully chosen by the one who knew us best. She knew what we loved and what we needed, what little things would make us smile wide. Even everyday things held more meaning in a Christmas stocking. Oranges, candies and wool socks; they were all magic.

We moved out of that small brick house in Mobile to another brick house further north. I graduated high school and college and then settled down in Tennessee. And through all the changes that came with all the years – changes of heart and circumstance and location – I’ve always had a stocking hanging somewhere. Each Christmas Eve, without fail, it has been filled to the top with precious and ordinary things. Filled with love spilling over from my mother.

Some years I got to help, Mom and I choosing who got which candy, which socks, which trinket and which prize. Clementine oranges in first, then the chocolates, then the lighter things arranged just so. Candy canes hang over the top; two if we had extra. Some years we had more family than stockings; those years we just used socks. Everyone was included, without exception. No one would be left out. This was Christmas, after all, and Christmas is for everyone, every single one.

I have a house now of my own, not made of brick but wood. I have a husband and three children and a mantle with stockings for each one. Every year as we hang them up I remember all the years before. Those are some of my most sacred memories, watching my mom pour her heart into those Christmas stockings. And though it may seem silly to some, I pray one day my kids can say the same.

Amanda Williams is wife to David and stay-at-home mama to 3-year-old twin boys and a spunky 5-year-old girl. Tennessean by birth, Nashvillian by choice, Amanda uses her free time to stare at the wall, inhale coffee and chocolate, snap photos and play with words. Amanda laughs at herself – a lot – and she believes honest words can unearth beauty and truth from chaos and doubt. She writes about motherhood, faith and writing at Life. Edited. Connect with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Now it’s your turn! Click the link below and you’ll be taken to the form to link up your own Christmas memory post! Be sure to check out the other memories and share the love! Let’s spread the Christmas Magic, shall we?