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Stocking Stuffers

Tired of giving the same old thing?

Six little gifts that fit in a stocking.

  1. Admit oneOne readingFor Mom
  2. Admit oneOne readingFor Dad
  3. Admit oneOne readingFor Grandma
  4. Admit oneOne readingFor The kids
  5. Admit oneOne readingFor Teacher
  6. Admit oneOne readingFor Best friend

The deal

Checking with the machine…

What it is

A stocking stuffer is a small gift tucked into a Christmas stocking, a custom traced to the legend of St. Nicholas leaving gold for three sisters. The Midway Machine pack gives you six printable reading tickets, each one a personalized card the person opens with their own birthday.

Each ticket is a printed ADMIT ONE with its own code. Fold one into a Christmas card, roll one up in a stocking, tie one to a candy cane with a ribbon. On Christmas morning, the person types in their birthday and their own card arrives by email.

It works for the brother-in-law who has everything, the teenager who wants nothing, Grandma, the kids' teachers and the whole Secret Santa at work. Nobody gets the same card, because nobody has the same birthday.

Stockings, shoes and boots around the world

The stocking is one version of a much older idea: leave something out overnight and find it filled by morning.

  • Much of Europe: December 6, St. Nicholas Day, is still the main day for small gifts and merrymaking in many countries. 1
  • The Netherlands: Children put out their shoes on the evening of December 5, with carrots and hay for the saint's horse, hoping to find small gifts in their place. 1
  • Italy: La Befana, who looks like a kindly old grandmother, fills stockings on the night before Epiphany, January 6. Good children get sweets, small toys and a little money. Naughty ones get "coal", which these days is usually a sweet made to look like it. 2
  • The United States: Stockings by the chimney on Christmas Eve, a custom fixed in place by the 1823 poem that begins "'Twas the night before Christmas". 3

    Why small gifts work

    There's good research behind the humble stocking. In seven studies, Kimberlee Weaver of Virginia Tech and Stephen Garcia and Norbert Schwarz of the University of Michigan found that people judging a gift average its parts rather than add them up. A cashmere sweater on its own seemed more generous than the same sweater with a $10 gift card tucked in. 4

    One way to read that for Christmas morning: a small gift does best as its own moment, not stapled to a big one. That is more or less what a stocking is.

    Price matters less than people think. Stanford researchers found recipients don't feel more grateful for costlier gifts, even though givers expect them to. And gifts that stir up feeling, an experience or a thing that recalls one, tend to bring people closer. 5,6

        Where the Christmas stocking comes from

        1. 4th centuryNicholas, born in Patara on what is now the southern coast of Turkey, became Bishop of Myra and died on December 6, AD 343. December 6 became St. Nicholas Day. 1
        2. The legendA poor man could not give his three daughters dowries. Three times, a bag of gold came through an open window and, the story goes, landed in stockings or shoes drying by the fire. That is the tale behind hanging stockings. 1
        3. 1809Washington Irving described New Yorkers hanging a stocking in the chimney on St. Nicholas Eve and finding it filled by morning. 7
        4. 1823A poem printed without a name in the Troy Sentinel on December 23 gave the world "The stockings were hung by the chimney with care." Clement Clarke Moore claimed it in 1844; one scholar has since argued it was Henry Livingston's. 3
        5. 1880sA New York Times piece complained that the long woollen stocking was too big to fill affordably, and decorated, gift-sized stockings caught on. 8
        6. OrangesAn orange in the toe is often explained as a stand-in for St. Nicholas's gold, and as a treat families could afford in the Depression. 8

        Worked out, not guessed

        • Three gold balls, sometimes shown as oranges, are one of the traditional symbols of St. Nicholas, from the legend of the three bags of gold. 1

        Why a ticket in a stocking

        Stockings are for small things that make people grin. A ticket costs nothing in shelf space and opens into something about them, which is more than most stocking stuffers can say.

        And it's the one gift where reading it out loud over breakfast is half the fun.

        How it works

        1. Order the pack. A few minutes later your email brings a printable page of six ADMIT ONE tickets (two by three, with cut lines and a To and From line on each), plus a link to forward each ticket by email.
        2. Write To and From on each ticket and tuck them in: stockings, Christmas cards, the office Secret Santa, the teacher's card, or forward one by email.
        3. Each person redeems theirs with their own birthday, and their own card lands in their inbox a few minutes later.

        Each ticket is one reading for one person and works once. Tickets are good for 12 months from the day you buy them.

        Questions

        Is it all right for kids?

        Yes. A parent can redeem a ticket with the child's name and birthday, and print the card for them. It's for entertainment, and it's a good giggle at the breakfast table.

        How do I wrap a code?

        Print the page of tickets, cut along the lines, and write To and From on the back. Roll it up with a ribbon, or slip it into a card.

        Can I give them to classmates and teachers?

        Yes. Each ticket works for anyone who holds it, so a pack goes a long way across a class, a team or a staff room.

        How long do the tickets last?

        They are good for 12 months from the day you buy them, so there is no rush after Christmas.

        Why do we hang Christmas stockings?

        The custom goes back to the legend of St. Nicholas, who is said to have dropped bags of gold through a window for three sisters, landing in stockings or shoes drying by the fire. The 1823 poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" fixed the stocking by the chimney in place.

        Why is there an orange in the toe of the stocking?

        It's often explained as a stand-in for St. Nicholas's gold, and as a treat families could afford during the Depression.

        Sources

        1. Who is St. Nicholas?, St. Nicholas Center. Read on .
        2. La Befana – Italian Christmas Witch (collected 14 April 2021), USC Digital Folklore Archives. Read on .
        3. Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas (Troy Sentinel, 23 December 1823), with notes, Representative Poetry Online, University of Toronto Libraries. Read on .
        4. The paradox of gift giving: more not better (12 December 2011), Virginia Tech, via Newswise. Read on .
        5. Research Confirms It's the Thought That Counts (Marguerite Rigoglioso, 1 December 2008), Stanford Graduate School of Business. Read on .
        6. The science of gift giving: U of T research on the best kind of present to receive (Don Campbell, 16 December 2016), University of Toronto News. Read on .
        7. Washington Irving, Knickerbocker's History of New York (1809), Project Gutenberg (eBook 13042). Read on .
        8. The history of the Christmas stocking and some ideas for stocking stuffers, NBC Washington. Read on .

        For entertainment and self-reflection. Astrology and numerology are traditions, not science.

        Spotted something wrong, out of date or missing? The corrections page says how we fix it.

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