So, last January our family got a dog. We had not had a dog ever before… I have never in my life had an indoor dog. But this one? Since the moment we met him at the Humane Society, when he walked over to me and laid his head on my knee, he has been a solid part of our family. He lives inside and outside our house. He sleeps on our couch. He eats our socks. I can barely remember life without him.
So naturally, in this Christmas season, our kids have asked if Sparky gets a stocking.
When Neil and I got married, we were given a set of Christmas stockings as a wedding present. I thought it was a brilliant gift, because who thinks of Christmas decorations in July? And now forever and ever when I hang these stockings on the chimney with care, I will remember who gave them to us and that we’ve had them for our entire married life.
It occurred to me that I would very much want to continue the Christmas stocking hanging tradition when we added kids to our family, but I knew I would not be able to find the exact same ones we had been given. This bothered my ‘all things in order’ head a bit, but I figured I could find stockings for kids that at least coordinate with ours.
Our daughter’s first Christmas brought the chance to start this all-important search. Not long after arriving at an attractive display of Christmas stockings, I realized the real question wasn’t ‘which ones’ but… ‘how many’?
Which is how I found myself in the Eddie Bauer Home store in December 1998, with our 8-month-old daughter in a stroller, debating how many kids we were going to bring into our family.
I was not having a conversation with my husband about this; I was in the store making this huge decision based solely on the need for a set of uniform Christmas stockings to be used in our family for all time. Because you have to buy them all at once if they’re going to look the same, right? Because you can’t count on the same stockings being sold every year, or even the same store being there, right? (Eddie Bauer Home?)
So I deliberated and frowned and eventually bought three matching stockings and stocking hangers, thus arbitrarily declaring that we, Neil and Kim Bontrager, would have three kids.
Fast forward a few years and we find ourselves with two great kids and circumstances that have declared it to be so. We love our kids, we are not at all discontent with our family. But we DO have an extra stocking.
And now we have a dog.
So, while the original question might have been ‘does the dog get a stocking?’, now we have moved on to ‘does the dog get the ‘third kid’ stocking?’. Because…wow. I don’t know how I feel about that. What are the social implications, both for the kids AND the dog?
It’s possible I’m overthinking this.
But I don’t think so.
So, taking votes. What should I do?
