"When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?"

Gratitude often flourishes in the small and tangible, especially in childhood. A child, waking up to find a Christmas stocking stuffed with treats, feels an uncomplicated surge of thankfulness for whoever filled it. The act is obvious, the giver apparent, and the gift clearly extra, a delight that, in its unexpectedness, is met with joy. The mind easily clasps the concept: someone cared enough to give. Yet as people grow, the tendency leans toward taking the most profound gifts for granted, the daily miracles woven into routine, unremarked, because they are constant.

Chesterton’s observation highlights this strange lapse in perspective. Stockings and gifts are external: they arrive with some fanfare, easily separated from the background of life. Legs, on the other hand, are one’s constant companions. Few pause to marvel at their usefulness, their complexity, their essential role in experiencing the world. Legs fill the stocking of life every day, allowing movement, independence, participation. Yet familiarity renders them invisible, dulling gratitude. The notion invites not just a whimsical comparison, but also a gentle rebuke: if treats warrant thanks, surely the greater and more foundational endowment of functioning, living bodies deserves even deeper appreciation.

The tendency to overlook the fundamental in favor of the decorative betrays a deeper blindness to the sources of joy and meaning. If stocking-fillers deserve thanks for a simple annual gesture, how much more does existence itself, with its muscles and bones, its senses, its ongoing miracles? Chesterton’s playfulness brings to light a human failing: comfort with abundance can breed forgetfulness, and only deliberate wonder can restore perspective. True gratitude demands noticing not only the special, but the spectacular that masquerades as ordinary. To thank God for legs is to regain the childlike vision that sees gift where others see only background.