Stockings! Where do we stand on stockings? Without doubt, they’re my favourite bit of Christmas. I hope I don’t shatter anyone’s Father Christmas based illusions when I say that creeping around the house in the dark swapping empty kilt/welly socks for matching full ones, has always made me happy – and yet has also often been the final, exhausting straw. But sitting up in bed and squishing the bulging knitwear is one of my earliest memories, and not much has changed. We still all gather in the L&F marital bed and open them together – even when we all had Covid, and Isobel’s stocking, containing amazing treasures kindly provided by her Godmother as I couldn’t move enough even to click on ‘Buy Now’, was the envy of all. The boys made do with edible bits bought some weeks before, and didn’t eat them as they all felt too ill and everything tasted strange – ah, memories …