Katie Wells, founder of the Wellness Mama blog, has published an updated guide featuring more than 100 stocking stuffer ideas with a focus on health, practicality, and family-friendly fun. Posted on December 5, 2025, the list highlights nutritious edibles, DIY beauty items, experiential gifts, and other small presents for a range of ages, framed within the long-standing Christmas stocking tradition.
The Wellness Mama guide opens with a look at the history of Christmas stockings. Citing the famous poem "The Night Before Christmas," Katie Wells notes that stockings have been "hung by the chimney with care" for over 200 years, even though the exact origins of the custom are less clear. She explains that most accounts connect the tradition to St. Nicholas: in one popular legend, he secretly dropped gold coins down the chimney of a widower who could not afford dowries for his three daughters, with one coin landing in a stocking that had been hung by the fire to dry. Wells adds that, in her own family, her children take part in the St. Nicholas Day custom of leaving a boot out for treats on December 6.
Wells, who is introduced on her site as a certified nutrition consultant and health coach with a background in research and journalism, as well as a mother of six, organizes her suggestions into several categories to make holiday shopping easier.
For edible stocking stuffers, Wells recommends options that lean toward whole foods or higher-quality treats. Her list includes chia seed or coconut water drinks (homemade or store‑bought), grass‑fed beef sticks, homemade chocolates poured into Christmas‑themed silicone molds, nuts in the shell paired with a nutcracker, organic tea crystals, fresh clementine oranges, pomegranates, chocolate truffles, naturally sweetened artisan chocolate bars, homemade marshmallows, coconut macaroons, chocolate‑dusted nuts, natural gummy bears, and jars of hot chocolate mix. She also suggests items like Four Sigmatic mushroom coffee packets, Organifi Gold drink mix, Laila Ali spice blends for seasoning meat and other dishes, and LMNT electrolyte packets in chocolate salt flavor.
In the DIY and beauty category, the Wellness Mama post highlights both homemade and store‑bought personal‑care items. Ideas range from lip balm in seasonal flavors (including DIY tinted and peppermint versions) and body cream with essential oils to natural makeup, nail kits, and non‑toxic nail polish. Wells also mentions products from her own Wellnesse brand, including mouth tape, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and floss, along with earrings (such as jade styles), bubble bath, sugar scrubs, body butter, frankincense and myrrh lotion bars, Alitura facial serum and clay masks, magnesium lotion, spa headbands for teens, kid‑safe essential oils, Toups Organics cosmetics, Fontana non‑toxic candles, Beesilk lotion bars, homemade bath bombs, trial‑size Annmarie Gianni skincare sets, shower steamers, and silk eye masks.
Health‑oriented stuffers receive a separate section labeled "Health Nut Stocking Stuffers." There, Wells points readers to propolis throat spray, royal jelly packets or throat‑soothing lollipops, instant coffee with medicinal mushrooms, home probiotics for the environment, Hiya vitamins and supplements for children, Sleepology supplements for adults and kids, Kion Aminos packets, Beam relaxation drink mix, beef liver capsules, raspberry lemonade magnesium drink packets, and probiotic gummy vitamins.
The guide also encourages readers to think beyond physical goods by including "Experiences / Sentimental" ideas. These suggestions include coupons for a special "date" with a parent, carousel or arcade tokens, a movie night coupon with a favorite dessert, a pass to stay up an hour past bedtime, the chance to choose family meals for a day, mini photo books featuring family memories, personalized bookmarks (with the option to pair them with a new book), keepsake letters or love notes, and movie tickets or gift certificates.
Practical gifts appear under a "Perfectly Practical Stocking Stuffers" heading, where Wells lists festive socks, headbands and scrunchies, magnetic wrist bands for holding nails and screws, dollar bills or half‑dollar coins, Surefire flashlights, mini sketchbooks, wired earbuds, leggings, no‑crease hair ties and banana clips, handmade natural‑fiber mittens, stainless steel straws, crinkle cutters for children learning to use knives, plastic‑free plates and cups from Ahimsa, blue light blocking glasses, compact water filters such as Lifestraw or Sawyer models, tactical pens that can double as emergency tools, and lightweight trailside utensils for camping.
For fun and games, Wells highlights smaller items that fit easily into a stocking and support learning or movement. Her list includes logic puzzles like Logic Links and Kanoodle, word games such as Boggle, Apples to Apples Jr., Story Cubes, and Mad Libs Jr., trivia cards from the Professor Noggin series, card and dice games like Zobmondo, classic toys like Rubik’s Cubes and Slinkys, kinetic flow rings, mini adult coloring books, and Kendama games.
The guide further caters to creative children and adults with "Crafty Stocking Stuffer Ideas." These encompass washi tape or decorative duct tape, crochet kits for kids, crayons and colored pencils, wooden peg dolls that can be painted into characters, yarn and knitting needles paired with an online Udemy class, and beginner calligraphy sets.
In a section on themed stockings, Wells suggests grouping small items into mini "kits" instead of filling stockings with unrelated gifts. Examples include an adventure kit for camping with a compass, mini‑flashlight, beef jerky, trail mix, binoculars, and a fanny pack; a letter‑writing kit complete with stationery, stickers, pens, an address book, and stamps; a crafting kit with yarn, crochet hooks, cross‑stitch sets, buttons, stickers, and ribbon; an art‑supply kit with watercolor paints, brushes, glue, stickers, and paper punches or stamps; and a purse‑themed assortment of mints, tissues, pens, and hand lotion.
A final "Just Because" section rounds out the list with additional ideas such as jewelry and charms, gift certificates for learning something new, festive ties, general gift cards, religious medals or holy cards, and cash or gift cards tucked into a Money Maze puzzle box.
To close the article, Wells proposes a twist on the usual stocking tradition: instead of delivering every small gift on Christmas morning, families could place one new item into the stockings on each of the twelve days of the Christmas season, from December 25 through the feast of the Epiphany on January 6. She suggests this approach can help children look forward to daily surprises while keeping their attention on the entire Christmas season rather than a single day.