BRANCHVILLE—Mary Purvivance Futrell has continued a family holiday tradition that began when she was a child in Boykins.

The Branchville resident recently brought to the newspaper a Christmas stocking that her mother, Annetta Purviance, had made for her long ago. More specifically, she sewed the names on red stockings for Mary and her siblings – Monty Jr., Sam, Ninette and Jean – to hang on the mantle. Their dad was Montgomery Purviance.

Futrell, 85, also brought in a couple of family photos that show those stockings hung with care in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there on Christmases long ago.

Even today, those stitchings and stockings have held up.

As a mother herself a few decades later, Futrell has done the same.

She bought stockings and sewed the names of her own children, then grandchildren and even great-grandchildren, such as Stella and Stone.