Are your kids shoes stuffed with chocolate coins?

[chiguirre]

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

 

I've got the shoes stuffed with gold foil coins and candy canes and switches too! Now I'm just waiting for them to wake up to see what St. Nicholas and Krampusz brought. I even found antique greeting cards to print that have a personalized note for each kid.

 

They're up! Gotta go!

[HRAAB]

Gold coins and clementines. What are the switches for?

[laurad1125]

Yes! But the boys are still asleep!!!! I'll give them until 8, then I'm going to wake them up - I love watching them see what he left!

[chiguirre]

It went over well. They could only see the switches at first then they found the treats hidden inside their notes. The switches are for bad children from the Krampusz, the treats are for good children from St. Nicholas. When you're old enough not to freak out, you get both. In Hungary they even sell golden switches with fancy bows. I went with an economy model I found at Target in the Christmas decoration aisle. The idea is that no one is all good or all bad, so you get a bit of both.

[hsbaby]

Nope, I'd never heard if this until yesterday! A neighbor boy was telling ds to leave his shoes out so they would be filled with candy. Fortunately ds didn't seem too excited by this since I don't have any candy to put in it!

[Brigitte]

Dh bought the coins and didn't tell me where he put them. He came home from work after I was sound asleep and he wasn't up when I left for work. So, I just called him and told him to find shoes laying about and put the coins in.

[Liza Q]

This year St. Nicholas came a day early to accommodate our oldest girls. What a great guy! He did not leave chocolate coins; instead, he left assorted chocolates and some real coins. He also left a dvd under each shoe...he is obviously also a scifi/fantasy fan - who knew?

 

ETA: I like the switch idea. My crew are certainly a little of both!!!

 

BTW, is anyone planning a great dinner? We had Sauerbraten, potato balls, red cabbage, sprouts, carrots and a custard-apple kuchen. Mmmmmm....it was a lot of work but so worth it.

Edited December 6, 2010 by Liza Q

[Violet Crown]

Oh thank goodness you posted this thread. I glanced at the title and said "Holy Cow!" and rushed off to make sure things were in shoes. Oops.:blushing:

 

Looks like St Nicholas left (in the nick of time) sugared almonds, gold coins, and a saint card in each. With hope that the last of those is like a reverse-switch: carrot rather than stick.

[Jami]

He left a chocolate orange in each shoe here. And a letter in response to the letters the kids left him. :)

[mommaduck]

Well, shoot! I didn't know that's what I was supposed to do!

[chiguirre]

For your holiday enjoyment (and enlightenment if you have no clue what holiday it is):

 

 

 

 

 

Don't watch these with littles who might be scared by St. Nicholas' scary sidekick. Oh, and the cartoon one is wrong, Krampusz comes on Dec. 6, not Christmas eve.

 

Here's a grown-up's only commentary on Dutch traditions by David Sedaris:

 

 

 

This is hilarious, but has language and obvious "Santa is a cultural construct, not a real guy" content.

[Stacia]

Well, no. But, Oma will have a tray full of treats (chocolates, marzipan, speculaas, and clementines) when we see her later.

 

ETA: Dd did get St. Niklaas treats last week at Dutch school too. When they're out of the room, the zwarte Piets come in & leave little treats all over the place -- the tables, the floors, etc....

Edited September 12, 2014 by Stacia

[Stacia]

Here's a grown-up's only commentary on Dutch traditions by David Sedaris:

 

 

 

This is hilarious, but has language and obvious "Santa is a cultural construct, not a real guy" content.

 

I was just getting ready to post this too, lol! Love this one.

[HRAAB]

This site is loaded with terrific ideas for celebrating the Feast of St. Nicholas.

[annlaura]

Yes! DS4 was so cute. We left the shoes with carrots and apples for the horse by the door, but St. Nick left them, with a couple little wrapped treats, on a little table. DS4 ran right past the gifts to the door and was so excited to discover the horse had eaten the carrots and apples. DS1, who has never had chocolate coins, immediately grabbed a couple and declared nyum nyum. How do they know? :lol: So glad we've added this to our traditions. :)

[ladydusk]

We had a bag of chocolate coins (thank you Trader Joe's!) and their annual Christmas ornament. We'll make some St Nicholas Spice cookies later.

[Little Nyssa]

Yes! I hid them in socks though. DC were very surprised since this is our first year doing this. Good message about good deeds by stealth! Hooray St Nicholas!

[LaissezFaire]

Our shoes have been discovered. Ours have coins, a small gift, a clementine orange and a silly poem. Our favorite part of this day is the silly poems about a persons bad habit. I work hard on those!

[TheCoffeeChick]

Yep! We barely remembered last night - actually we dragged the kids out of bed right after we put them in to put their shoes by the tree. :) One shoe had chocolate gold coins and the other had a zhu-zhu pet.

 

Happy St. Nicholas Day!!

[DianeW88]

Of course! St. Nicholas leaves chocolate coins and other candy in the shoes and he also leaves 3 presents for each child. A DVD (usually Christmas, but we have most of those now, so "Toy Story 3" for my 9 yo this time), a Christmas book, and one toy. Tides them over until Christmas Eve. In theory. :lol:

[amyable]

No chocolate coins because I can never find allergen free ones ... but a few real coins, some candy, and a banana. :) The kids all forgot yesterday, so they were quite surprised when they woke up this morning.