They'd put up a Christmas tree, hang stockings, and have presents... As I grew older the tradition wasn't so special.

We'll decorate the house and hang stockings on the mantel, and sing carols in Tucker center with the rest of the townsfolk.

Nearly everything we associate with the folk culture of Christmas - snow and chimneys and hung stockings and evergreen trees and a white-bearded gentleman carrying a full bag of gifts - comes late to the holiday.

From the mantel hung stockings thick with treats, and sugar canes burst from the seams.

This led to the custom of children hanging stockings or putting out shoes, eagerly awaiting gifts from Saint Nicholas.

Then there were those, like the Burriers, who have taken to celebrating not Christmas but Christmases, hanging stockings in one state and cleaning up the wrapping paper in another, with long rides in between.

"Children, with no chimneys to hang stockings, put out shoes in the hope of small toys from Santa Claus."

He hung red stockings with the names of the Sikh employees from the ceiling, dangled small Santa Claus figures on nylon threads over the counter and put a Santa Claus figure in the window.

We hung stockings on the mantle and it was the perfect backdrop when Santa came for a visit during a holiday community reading.

To re-live the bombing over and over in a courtroom was agony, but to see him walk free, some said, would have been like being blown up all over again in this city, where people hang stockings on mantles beneath pictures of dead children.