The Stockings Were Hung

Last night was the first night in several days that I wasn't working on the fireplace mantel. With the second coat of glossy honey oak stain, I think it's finally complete.

While the gas fireplace in our basement had been roughed into the wall during the spring of 2004, and hooked up and operational since January 2005, I figured I should get the mantel installed before Christmas, you know, so that Santa could finally have a good and proper entrance into our home, and we could hang our stockings there.

Which leads me to "The Night Before Christmas" - Fran bought me a book with classic paintings in it a few years ago, starting the tradition that we do a reading from this book every Christmas Eve. But I've always wondered why the stockings were hung by the chimney rather than the mantel or fireplace.

I've always thought of chimneys as that thing that stuck out of the top of your house, attached to either a fireplace or perhaps a furnace. So when I was young (especially since we didn't have a fireplace) I always had this image of them hanging their stockings outside on the roof near the chimney.

The other thing I used to misread when I was younger would be the sugarplums. I always imagined them as dancing sugarplums; but I guess the sugar plums aren't actually dancing (like Lionel Richie dancing on the ceiling), but visions of them are dancing in the kids' heads.

I've never had a sugarplum, but I did just find a recipe for them. Hmm, that would be fun. I could eat them by the fireplace while admiring the new mantel and waiting for Santa to appear.