Happy holidays! Befana stockings

best wishes to all of you out there! as anyone at all catholic (or living in a catholic community) knows, today is epiphany.

i know i missed sending out new year’s wishes, but i hadn’t been able to write anything because i had tracheitis, which caused me to get a fever 4 times in less than a month and a terrible cough, in addition to being incredibly tired and weak. i finally got put on a horrible cocktail of medications, and there i am again!

so, today is ephiphany. as tradition has it in italy (or at least southern italy), a witch called “la befana” comes to kids’ houses the night before, santa claus-style, and leaves gifts and stockings with all sorts of goodies. but adults also prepare stockings with candy and whatnot for kids that aren’t their own (or even adults). seeing as i haven’t been quite up to par recently and my brain is still a bit on the slow side, i knew that my husband had taken charge of our own family’s befana business, but i confess that i totally forgot about our niece and nephew. whoops….

so when i remembered this morning, i quickly made up paper stockings as alessia from alessia, scrap & craft did. i also made paper stockings last year, but the edges were held together by staples, which wasn’t the most efficient (or aesthetically pleasing) way to do it. alessia, on the other hand, use the paper that fresh loaves of bread are sold in here in italy and sewed it together. pure genius! (and as it seems i wasn’t the only one to think so; alessia just put up a new post with links to other sites writing about her idea.)

instead of using bread paper, i used a paper bag. i pinned the two parts together and sewed it with a zig zag stitch. i didn’t put the loop to hang the stockings because i was lazy (and incredibly rushed!). then i had my daughter draw on them and i filled them with homemade molasses cookies (after packing them up in re-used plastic bags).

it really took very little time to make these stockings up and the end result was quite satisfying, not only for me, but also for the kids! thanks, alessia, you’re always full of great ideas!!