The Empty Stocking

There’s a particular kind of quiet that lives inside an empty stocking.

It’s easy to miss because everything else is so loud. Wrapping paper. Lists. Receipts. Group chats. The tree. Traditions. Christmas baking. The Holiday on repeat. The empty stocking doesn’t announce itself. It just hangs there, limp and quite, while everyone else’s overflows.

This year, as a bonus mom, I’ve had a whole new vantage point on the holidays. Not just the visible labour, the shopping, the planning, the lists on lists on lists, but the emotional, financial, and mental gymnastics required to make December feel like warmth instead of work. To make magic feel effortless. To make everyone else feel considered.

So when people say Santa is a woman, I’m in full agreement.

And listen, I have a husband who is a proud feminist. He does all of the laundry. He prides himself on his consistency, his care, his cleaning of the household. He shows up in ways that matter deeply. And honestly, my dad was the same. Helpful. Cooking. A present host. Fully awake and in it, never napping on the couch while my mom created the holiday magic around him. This isn’t a story about incompetence or neglect. It’s about something more structural, more inherited, more quietly accepted. And yet, even with all of that support, my mind keeps going back to my mom’s stocking.

Ours were always overflowing. Chocolate, little surprises, thoughtful things tucked into every corner. Hers was lighter. Nearly empty. Sometimes functionally symbolic. Sometimes literally so. And at the time, I didn’t question it. It felt normal. Like gravity. Like that’s just how the holidays worked.

Only now do I see it clearly.

The stocking wasn’t forgotten. It was deprioritized. Because the person filling everyone else’s didn’t put themselves on the list. Or maybe didn’t feel allowed to.

This year, I also moved to Iceland, and they do things differently here.

There are no stockings in the way I grew up with them. Instead, there’s a sock. And for 13 days leading up to Christmas, children receive one small thing in that sock each day. A book. A treat. Something simple. Something steady. It’s tied to the Icelandic Christmas folklore of the Yule Cat and the Jólasveinar, but what struck me most wasn’t the mythology. It was the pacing.

Nothing about it demands excess. Nothing requires one person to exhaust themselves in silence. Nothing hinges on one grand reveal that somehow erases weeks of invisible labour. It’s a tradition that doesn’t rely on depletion to feel meaningful.

Living here has made me think more deeply about the traditions I grew up with, what they required, who they relied on, and who they quietly depleted.

I know the holidays bring up a whole host of emotions for people. Grief. Loneliness. Financial stress. Estrangement. Nostalgia that aches instead of comforts. I hold all of that with care.

But the thing I want to call attention to this season is the empty stocking.

Because it almost always belongs to the person pouring into everyone else.

And maybe the empty stocking is a metaphor for something bigger. The way moms and women give so much of themselves to create holiday magic. The way their labour disappears into ambiance. The way a big guy in a matching set and a great boot takes all of the credit.

Or maybe, and this is a bit of a departure from my usual writing, this is simply a message.

To pause. To notice. To pour a little extra into the stocking, literally or metaphorically, of the women who make the holidays feel like home in your life.

Ask what they want.
Buy the thing they would never buy for themselves.
Take something off their plate without needing instructions.
Say their name next to the magic.

If you’re looking for the moral of the holiday story, it’s probably hanging there in the form of an empty stocking.

Made it this far? Nice to know I’m not yelling into the void (today).

I like to write about the things that feel like too much for a group chat and not enough for the performative nature of socials—the messy, real, still-figuring-it-out thoughts that my mind wonders to when I get a minute. This is where they get to stretch their legs.

If this piece brought something up for you, tell me where you’ve noticed the empty stocking, or the quiet kind of labour behind the magic. A moment, a memory, a tradition you’re rethinking. I’d love to hear it.

And if you liked this, send it to someone else to… well, read this later.