The year Santa didn't come..

Ariadne that made me laugh, thanks for that

We had pillowcases and so did my sons as they got older. In fact my eldest son still has his stocking which my Grandson now uses.

Santa came very, very early in the morning one year - I must have been about 4, and an only child in a house with four adults. I woke up and yelled "He's been!" My poor Dad came up to me (I had an attic room) and patiently helped me look at my presents, while encouraging me to drink a cup of hot sweet tea which tasted really funny.

It was only years later that I realised he had put a tot of scotch in the tea in the hope that it would knock me out for a few more hours. Can't remember if it worked...

It was all the small stuff that went into the stockings. Bigger presents were wrapped up and put under the tree or were left, as in the case of dolls, sitting at the end of the bed, to be seen as soon as we woke up.

A lot of people seem to have had stockings/socks full of presents. I feel rather spoilt having had a pillow case, which would of course hold a lot more.

We had our dad's old rugby socks with loops sewn on to them so that they could be hung on the ends of our beds - until we got divans and then they were hung on the doorknobs.

I always left the filled stockings on the girls' beds. The year that Daughter No.3 arrived I waited and waited and waited for them to sleep knowing full well that the new baby would be awake for a feed at about 4am. They finally settled at 3 and I got an hour's sleep before the feed and then, of course up they got to open the presents, so that was that and the day started. The next year and thereafter the stockings were hung by the fire downstairs so I could get to bed before midnight and no one was allowed downstairs otherwise Santa wouldn't call

I meant it to make people smile.

After all we had got her up at 4am the previous year. I totally understand why she did it

It was the way vampirequeen told the story that made me smile. I can understand mam's motives and what a happy ending.

I felt sad at the thought of the children crying because they believed Santa had forgotten them, petallus. Of course your reaction wasn't wrong!

I once dreamt that i'd forgotten to fill my childrens' stockings. I was newly divorced and it could have been a subliminal message that everything depended on me from now on. Of course I never forgot, fat chance with all the reminding that went on.

It made me smile. Was that the wrong reaction?

I remember one Christmas, I 'knew' about Father Christmas, my younger brother did not. I was still awake hours after being sent to bed through being over-excited when I heard the door open and keeping perfectly still but squinting I saw my young father come creeping into the room holding two pillow cases stuffed with presents. But he trod on a mat by our bed which skidded on the shiny lino and he only just managed to avoid crashing down on to the floor, in which case the game would have been up regartding FC and my brother.

I don't know why I remember it so clearly all these years later.

Oh, vampirequeen, that's so sad! Thank goodness the story had a happy ending...