Why do we hang stockings at Christmas? It's an odd tradition. You take a fake sock, stick it to the wall, and stuff it with presents. Why?

After doing some digging, I have found that there is no "real" settled point in history that we look to as the beginning of stocking stuffing. Many claim it all started with a legend about Ol' Saint Nick.

According to legend, there were three poor sisters who had hung their stockings (socks) to dry above their fireplace. St. Nick knew the family was poor, so he went by and put gold in their stockings.

Some versions of the legend say that he went and placed the gold in the stockings. The craziest version has St. Nick throwing bags of gold down their chimney and accidentally landing a bag in a stocking.

In our modern times, we're still hoping to find gold in our stockings. The gold just comes in the form of plastic gift cards. I once had a family member that would put scratch-off tickets in stockings. That's a little like a bag of gold if you win.

Also, our modern stockings don't look much like "stockings" at all.

For the most part, the stocking we have now is full of nuts, fruit, candy, and little toys.