A quiet Christmas Eve?

So, the presents are wrapped, the mince pie and carrots are out for Santa and co., and everyone's looking forward to a chilled evening, after putting the boy to bed.
"Where's the stocking?" seems like such an innocent question to throw into the ether.  But after a hasty search results in no stocking, a full scale search and rescue effort is mounted.  Again, no joy.  Not so much as an old sock.  Solution?  Well, make one of course.

Bits:

Fabric (in this case, red stuff from a bean bag (yeah, I do seem to make loads...) for my sis-in-law) for the stocking itself.
Some white felt/fleece (in my case, it involved butchering a pair of white stockings (no, they wouldn't have worked for Santa's offerings!) that we'd bought the boy last year for his role of '7th sheep' in the nativity, only for him to refuse to take part)
Some black felt/fleece (as it happens, we had some lying about from the table mats - a different post altogether...)
Thread
Sewing machine (if you don't fancy doing it by hand, that is)
Fabric glue.


Grab a piece of fabric that's sort of squarish, and sketch a stocking shape on it that you're vaguely happy with. 
Cut this out. 
Use this as a template to make the other half (though remember that if you've chosen a fabric with a 'front' and a 'back', you'll need to make sure that you end up with both the 'fronts' on the outside of your stocking (unless the look you're going for is 'weird') and this will require you to cut the shapes out the right way round!
Cut the other half out (if you ignored my advice above, and now discover you have a 'front' and a 'back' that stick together, try again!)

Hem the tops of your stockings.  This will just mean that there's no taggy bits on the top - everywhere else will take care of itself.
Put them front to front (maybe I should mention at this point that I chose a fabric that didn't really have a discernible front and back, so less care was needed...)
Sew them up, using your sewing machine (or your mother, or whatever works best, really)

Turn your stocking inside out.  It should now be neat and tidy.
Next, cut out some bits of your white fabric (felt would be best, if you want to avoid butchering things) into circles.  One big for a snowman's body, one smaller for his head, and then a whole load of small ones for snow.

Glue all these onto the stocking, then cut out detail bits from the black fleece.  I went for a top hat, three buttons, a nose and some fluff for his pupils.
I didn't mention the blue fabric earlier did I?  No, that's because this was the point in the operation when I realised I needed it, so I figured you didn't need to know in advance either.  Now, I was a little bit shocking here in choosing my fabric donor.  I went to the cupboard where we keep his too-small clothes, found a blue polo shirt from his school uniform and, where there's a double layer of fabric at the top of the back, I cut out two small circles from the inside of the polo shirt.  No-one will ever know...  These were also glued to the snowman, along with the black bits.
Next, stop at the top of the stairs for an impromptu photo shoot with your stocking.

 Finally, hang the stocking up on the fireplace.  Yes, that is a real fire - I don't think my camera phone has really done it justice.  That and the fact that the wood's a bit damp...

Of course, you could add more decoration, trees, stars, angels and the like.  In fact, if you were talented, you could probably go the whole hog and hot glue a felt nativity onto it.  But that's out of my league :)
You can now enjoy the rest of your Christmas eve in peace.  (It took just over an hour, if you're wondering.)