When did people start putting out Christmas stockings ?

At this time of year, our games are firm favourites as Christmas stocking fillers. So we this year we wondered....when did all this Christmas stocking stuff start ?

Okay so spoiler alert: Nobody knows for sure but the story goes that St. Nicholas was once lodging with a desperately poor family. The father of the family hatched a plan to sell his daughters as a way of saving them from starvation. St. Nicholas was shocked and decided to help. When he left the house, he threw some bags of gold through a window and one of them landed in a stocking. Thus he saved the girls from being sold and of course, they all lived happily ever after. Thus it came about that children would leave out stockings at Christmas Eve, hoping that St. Nicholas (Santa) might fill them up!

Why not get some of our popular Christmas stocking fillers while you're here ?