The stockings are hung by the chimney with care. Empty stockings. No sooner do we picture the stockings hung than we're hit with the hopes that St. Nicholas soon will be there. In fact, their emptiness isn't even mentioned. We just figure they're empty. Why would anyone put up a full stocking? But come now. We have no time to think on this, because we are distracted by, prisoner to, totally wrapped up In Hopes that St. Nicholas Soon Will Be There. Dammit!
O, call it the excitement and anticipation of a Christmas Eve if you will, but - if you care - we've missed something. We've missed the exquisite emptiness of that foot-shaped, gaudy, felt or velvet or woolen ornament nailed up - or hung from shiny, mantle-saving, weighted custom brass hooks. Never meant to be worn, only to be filled.
Before something can be filled, it must be emptied. And we're full. Full of thoughts, desires, fears, memories, intentions, stories, worries, strategies, lists, shames, triumphs past, and losses to come. Full of wanting, needing, grasping, avoiding, conniving, wishing, praying, bargaining, using, reaching, spinning...you get it. We're full.
The stockings, hung by the chimney with care, are empty.
And somehow, in the dead of night, they're filled.
Legend has it that our actions through the year dictate the contents. Tradition holds that we get what we need, with a deluxe old-world twist: New mittens, warm socks. Soap. A tiny book of Oscar Wilde quotations. That Orange. The contemporary sensibility has room for some astonishing bauble, or electronic device. Now that's full.
And the stockings are emptied again.
They're laid in the box with the creche and the garland, the books and the lights, and they wait.
No, wait. They don't wait. They lie still.
They are emptied. Maybe they will again be filled.
