Eilir has never had a proper Christmas stocking. In our household we've always used pillow cases, so when I suggested that we make one, Eilir was over the moon. On Christmas Eve we still hadn't started, but the sewing machine was still set up from the sock monsters and I thought it wouldn't take us too long (that was a mistake!). We chalked out a stocking shape on an old green sheet folded in two and cut it out. I got out lots of bits of material (cut-offs from curtains etc), and suggested different ways we could decorate the stocking, including cutting out letters to make words that we could sew on applique style. Again Eilir had his own ideas, deciding he wanted stripes of different materials the length of the stocking and a length of red fun-fur at the top (left over from an old carnival costume of his). Eillir arranged the stripes and I tacked them on while we watched Matilda on the telly.

We then went back to our team approach to the machine work, Eilir on peddle and me on guiding and calling out commands like "Put your foot down", "Step on it" and "STOP". Eilir was getting really into using the machine and taking a great interest in how it worked, he loved it when we had to refill the bobbin - "Wow! That's really cool!" By this time it was getting very late (and me a little worried - I hadn't even started wrapping any presents...!), so Eilir got ready for bed while I persevered in finishing it off. It was eventually done at 10.30pm, Eilir took it upstairs and promptly fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.