Practical Stocking Stuffers

If your house is anything like ours, there is stuff everywhere.  The last thing we need this holiday season is more stuff.  

I am pretty good at buying useful items for those on my Christmas list, but when it comes to filling the stockings, I sometimes have a difficult time.  

If you aren't careful, you can wrap up a lot of money in just filling the stockings.  It can be very tempting to run to the dollar store to just find "filler" items.  However, most of those filler items don't really have a purpose outside of filling up space in the stocking.  But, if they are just filling up space in the stocking, most likely you will find them filling up space in your house after Christmas is over.  

Over the years I have found many useful items to fill the stockings with.  The boys were talking the other day about the things they usually get in their stockings. 

So, I am pretty predictable.  

But, they weren't discussing the "usual items" in disgust...they were actually looking forward to getting those things again this year.  

​And...I do usually throw in a few extra items to surprise them.  ​

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Hand warmers are always useful...whether you are out hunting, trying to stay warm at a cattle show or just taking care of your animals on a cold winter night.  Whenever you don't have them...you wish you did.

I bougth these mini LED flashlights for the boys several months ago.  

They love them!  

They work great and the best part is they are small enough to fit in your pocket.  This is especially helpful to the "little farmer" who always puts something down and can never find it again.  

I made the mistake when I bought the boy's stocking of looking at how cute they were instead of how big there were.  Moral of the story...the bigger the stocking, the more stuff you have to buy to fill it.  

I learned that the best way to take up a lot of space in a big stocking is to buy socks.  Thankfully our boys love socks.  Each year, I buy a package of socks, open the package, roll each pair into a ball and wrap each pair individually.  This works great for filling the toes of those oversized stockings.  

I don't know about your family....but our family goes through socks.  It seams that every time I do laundry I find a new holey sock. My kids aren't very picky, so just about any sock with color on it is fun for them.  

Since we do spend so much time outside, we all have at least one pair of wool socks.  It is really hard to find kid sized wool socks (especially for those medium sized boys), but we have found that women's  socks fit really well.  

Who doesn't need duck tape?  There are countless uses for it on the farm and it is the perfect fix-all.  

Why not make the practical fun?

Each member of our family has their own color of duck tape.  Daniel has camo, Isaac has neon green and Walker has orange.  

Isaac and Walker use their own colored tape to mark their territory.  They mark all of their show combs, show sticks and even their grooming chute with their colored tape.  

Deer skin gloves are the perfect work accessory.  Just because you have to work doesn't mean your hands have to look like it.  

Everyone has their own set of deerskin work gloves and you had better not touch them or you may get hurt!

​No stocking around here would be complete without some sort of candy to fill in the gaps.  What better sweet treat than cow tales. 

After all...we are a cow family.

I guess you can say that many of our stocking stuffers have become a tradition...but a well loved tradition.  

Daniel always buys things to fill my stocking...and he traditionally buys items that are too big to even fit in my stocking.

Christmas stockings can be fun to open, but also provide you with a year's supply of all the little things that you always need, but never want to buy yourself.  

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