"The Christmas Stocking" is a brief prose piece by L. Frank Baum. it was originally published in 1905, as the Introduction to a series of miniature "stocking-stuffer" books, together called The Christmas Stocking Series (1905 and 1911), which included Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, Little Black Sambo, and Fairy Tales from Andersen. In the piece, Baum delivers an account of how the custom of hanging Christmas stockings began. his account is appealing though limited in its historical accuracy: he places St. Nicholas in the Italian city of Padua instead of the ancient city of Myra in Asia Minor.