The Christmas PJ stockings are our own tradition that my kids love. But I didn’t always love them. Because I constantly forget how I sewed them the year before, and spend hours fighting with bobbins and stitch rippers to get each year’s PJs added.
But here we are, with a tradition of putting a strip of the kid’s Christmas jammies onto their stocking each year.
I didn’t start this tradition proactive. It was more of going through the process of decluttering things and thinking about the keepsakes I hold on to and how I can better honour them and use them.
Each year our ‘nutcracker’ brings the kids a set of Christmas PJs. As they grew out of them, I would save them in a box in the basement. And as we pulled out our Christmas supplies some years ago, I saw the PJs and felt this sense that I should DO something with them.
So, about seven years ago, I pulled out the new sewing machine and drafted an idea of what a Christmas PJ stocking could be. 
In retrospect, I should have outsourced this job of sewing stockings, I bought a sewing machine thinking I would learn how to sew. And as with many hobbies I gathered supplies for and started to learn…. it is something I am joyfully mediocre at!
I should have also accounted for the length of the stocking when I would have a finished product. But, the kids think the length is comical and will pull them on their feet and walk around the house. They will also have arguments about who should get the MOST stuff in their stocking as correlated to stocking size. (Guys, if you ever wonder if siblings run out of things to argue about, no, they do not)
Over the years, I found it helpful to have a two-year buffer between the kids getting Christmas PJs and them ending up on the stocking. This allows them to keep wearing things until they grow out of them. But really it was because I needed a year off a while back so I made up a rule to support myself.
I have decided to cap it at ten years. For one, the length is just too long. I can’t imagine my kids’ future partners would love to hang a 7-foot stocking of sub-par quality as their own holiday decor. And also, ten years of PJs, I think we get the idea by then.
What weird Christmas traditions do you guys have? What are ways you incorporate past memories into your Christmas each year?