Christmas stockings are one of my favorite things about Christmas morning. It was the one present that I was allowed to open before any of the adults were up and always included a formula of surprises that my Mom knew would keep me occupied for at least a short amount of time [at least until 7:30 am].

Our stockings always included a ‘foot’ made of a banana, orange and an apple – intended to tide us over until we had breakfast later that day.  Last year Drew and I celebrated our first married Christmas, and the first tradition we started was crafting the perfect stockings for each other – and I wanted to bring a bit of that holiday memory into our new family.

When I was looking for the perfect filler, I wanted to select something that would create that ‘foot’ in the bottom of the stocking but would be something my husband would enjoy. As a stocking stuffer, I wanted the items to be memorable and range around $25 for the completed stocking. When I came across the Hickory Farms Beef Hickory Sampler I knew I had found perfect foundation to starting to fill the stocking.

Rogue clearly wants to know where her stocking is.

Instead of a selection of fruit to build the foot, I’m using sweet hot mustard as the toe, golden toasted crackers as the arch and beef summer sausage and cheese as the heel and ankle. This collection comes packaged in a gift box and is perfect right price point to be included as a stocking stuffer item.

To fill out the rest of the stocking I included a bag of Peanut Brittle Popcorn, a couple of lego sets and scratch tickets (which is one of Drew’s family traditions). It has been so much fun starting our own traditions and finding creative ways to merge our personalities and memories into a new family unit.

How does your family fill stockings and what are the traditions that surround them in your household? Do the grown-ups in your home receive different stocking presents from the kiddos?

Disclaimer: This post was brought to you by Hickory Farms. All opinions, ideas and writing are my own. I was compensated and received a product sample as inspiration for this post.