The very first christmas I remember does have a Stocking Story. I believe I was just about to turn four. I remember the house - we called it the "yellow brick house" and we only lived there about two years. And, yes, I do have several memories involving living there even though I was so very young.
My Mom and I lived with her parents. Her youngest brother had just finished high school and he left from that house to join the Air Force and go off to World War II. My memory is of our return to the house after taking him to the bus station and Mom and Mammaw running off to their respective bedrooms, both sobbing. I was too little to understand that they thought they might not ever see him again, but I was definitely upset by their sorrow. He did return unscathed - in fact, all four of my mother's brothers served in that war and all four returned. How very lucky our family was.
That's also the house where I slipped and sat on the floor furnace and burned my bottom in an interesting checker-board pattern. I remember having to lay on my tummy for several days... I was so glad floor furnaces were no longer used by the time I had my own children!
Now about that Christmas. I hung my stocking on Christmas Eve - it was a red felt stocking I kept and used for many years until it just more or less fell apart. On Christmas morning, my grandpa carried me into the living room. I remember there was a small train making it's circle on the floor under the tree. But the most fascinating thing was this yellowish pointy protrusion from my stocking. It looked like a beak - a penquin beak! Surely I had a penquin in my stocking! Imagine! A penquin!
I ignored the train. I wanted that stocking. At last I had the stocking was in my arms and I could examine its contents. The yellowish pointy protrusion was ....a banana!
I remember fruit - oranges and apples - being a major part of my stocking loot when I was a little child. But a penguin would have been nice....
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