Favourite Baby Things - Christmas Stocking Edition

First of all, sorry to all the Grinches out there if this post is too early for you but Christmas is on the way and you won't be able to avoid the trees, lights, music, advertisements, or contagious spirit of joy and giving.  It seems like Christmas and everything that comes with it starts earlier and earlier every year.  The first sign of Christmas is usually fake trees (artificial is really just a nice word for fake), Christmas decorations and Christmas cards in our local Costco store.  This is followed by the Sears Wishbook which everyone knows is the bible of all Christmas shopping.  My brothers and I used to fight over that thing when it arrived.  We would flip through the catalogue excitedly and make our Christmas wish lists.  In reality, we were doing a lot of wishing and we knew it but it was still fun and it was part of our Christmas tradition.  Onto the next sign of Christmas...the mounds of flyers in our mail box.  Since Halloween, the stack of Christmas advertisements has been growing exponentially.  We've had magazine-sized marketing from all sorts of stores which I won't bother mentioning here...they've paid millions of dollars to grace your mailbox so you can discover them yourselves.

I posted a picture of our stockings above.  My stocking is the same one I've had since I was a baby.  I got Mrs. Claus which I will admit wasn't my favourite but I have three older brothers and I'm sure my Mom was eager to make a Mrs. Claus stocking when she finally had a girl!  My Mom made my stocking but my Grandma has been making the stockings for new family additions in recent years so she made Jeremy's and Connor's.  Hopefully, she has made one for Aleena too.  I think my Grandma must be adapting to the new concept of consumerism because the stockings seem to be getting progressively bigger.  Since Aleena was feeling left out this morning, we took another photo of the stockings just for her.

Back to Christmas stocking ideas...and I'm going to give you my stocking ideas rather than what I actually received in my stocking when I was younger.  To give my parent's credit, they were always very generous at Christmas time.  They had four kids and we were expensive with all of us playing hockey.  With that said, our stockings (less a few candies and an orange) were normally filled with personal hygiene products like deodorant, socks, contact lense solution, and other similar items.  Perhaps I'll start giving these types of things when my kids are older (and I'm older too).  In the meantime, my little sweet peas will receive a couple baby/toddler necessities and some fun "fluff".  You will notice that their stockings are stocked full of BabySteals/KidSteals items that I've been saving for this very purpose.  Everything I purchased was at least half price (or free in the case of the board books).

Here's what I've got so far.  I think the kids are bit (okay, a lot) spoiled this year.  I already bought one of Connor's non-stocking gifts.  He will get one from Santa and one from us but that's a topic for another post!

Connor's Stocking (2 years old)

• A bag of treats (orange, peach fruit cup, animal crackers)
• Sock Monkey Tuque 

• Ally Zabba Blanket

• A Chalk Mat and some dustless chalk (It's a two-sided mat with one side being a place mat while the other side is a chalkboard.)

 

• Thomas the Train T-Shirt 

 

• Warm winter socks (plan on buying some at Roots)

Aleena's Stocking (7 months old)

• A bag of treats (Mum Mums, Cereal Puffs)
• Sock Monkey Tuque

 

• Ally Zabba Blanket

• Small Board Books which I "bought" with my Pampers Gifts to Grow reward points

• BabyLegs Tights

• Sippy Cup (plan to buy a Playtex Spillproof bottle)
• Warm winter socks (plan to buy some from Roots)

For more stocking stuffer ideas, I'll refer you to a site that I found with lots of great ideas for different age groups.  The website is called Plumpstocking.com and they were an online store that sold stockings but have since closed for various reasons.  However, the website is still operational so here are more ideas for stocking stuffers.  Enjoy!

Last but not least, the Baby Chunky Cheeks Blanket Giveaway winner will be announced tomorrow at 4 pm Saskatchewan Time.  There are still a few hours left to enter.  Click on the Baby Chunky Cheeks logo for information on how to enter if you haven't already.

If you have a stocking stuffer idea to share, please post it in the comments! Don't be shy. :-)