About 7 years ago, I participated in a Christmas craft fair at the local high school and decided as part of my inventory that I would sell handmade Christmas stockings. Customers were amazed at the hand-stitching on the front and within the day, all the stockings were sold. To make a long story short, I decided to sell my Christmas stockings on the Web and opened my own online store. The first few years I was still learning about online shopping and didn’t really know how to manage the excessive amount of orders I was getting. I was very busy, not only during the holiday rush, but pretty much all year getting ready for the start of the season. I didn’t have much time to spend with my family and shocking enough, we didn’t even have a matching set of Christmas stockings of our very own! One Christmas, I worked on orders all the way up to the last possible shipping date before Christmas and did my Christmas shopping pretty much in the last few days before Christmas. Finally, it was Christmas Eve and after all the presents were placed under the tree and everyone was in bed, I stayed up all night and made five Christmas stockings for my family, all personalized and hung them by the fireplace with a little something in each one from “Santa”. The next morning when we all came down to open presents, everyone was so excited and surprised. Mind you, my kids are not little, at the time they were 22, 20, & 16. That just goes to show you, it is never too late to enjoy the tradition!
Courtney, Christine & Eric’s stockings. (Mom & Dad got one too!)