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St Nicholas Day

theelfqueen

By theelfqueen,
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Jaz

Jaz

Posted
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We did! We use to make gingerbread cookies for neighbors and read gingerbread cookie story books and a book about the real St. Nicholas. The kids would receive a small gift to celebrate.

 

This year, for the first time, my ds owes me money. I took a tradition from my childhood and had Santa pay his debt. Every year growing up, I would love to search the bottom of my stocking for a "Santa paid your debt note".

 

My dd missed The Grinch television special so she watched it this morning on Amazon.

 

Happy St. Nicholas' Day!

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MrsMommy

MrsMommy

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St. Nicholas Day is always the day we put the ornaments on our tree (even though it's already been up and lit for a few weeks). So the children's stockings include chocolate coins, an orange, and a new ornament. They'll all have a nice ornament collection when they have their own homes someday!

 

We also read Saint Nicholas: The Real Story of the Christmas Legend, which is another yearly tradition.

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JustEm

JustEm

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Haha, funny story. We always do stockings on St. Nicholas day. Somehow dh and I had the date wrong in our heads and thought it was tomorrow, I think because ds kept saying it was tomorrow. So when I woke up this morning and noticed the date i felt a bit guilty until I realized my kids all think it's tomorrow. So we'll be celebrating it tomorrow with stockings filled with little toys and some candy. We'll also watch a st Nicholas movie

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chiguirre

chiguirre

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Yes, I found nice St. Nicholas chocolate figures and coins at Aldi and bought some candy sticks at Crackerbarrel. The first Nicholas has been decapitated and he's delicious!

 

ETA:

 

For your holiday viewing pleasure:

 

Reasonably kid friendly:

 

 

Probably okay for older kids:

 

 

David Sedaris' 6 to 8 Black Men (Mature Audiences Only):

 

 

 

Edited by chiguirre
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vonbon

vonbon

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First time celebrating it!  

 

Read a history yesterday on the original Saint Nicolas...very interesting for all ages!  It described the various images and stories that have been associated with this saint throughout the centuries...how he is regarded throughout the world and by various names, etc.  

 

There were some very cool real-life applications to it, as the piece discussed how St. Nicolas was truly an approachable, warm priest and bishop who encouraged people from all backgrounds and walks of life.  

 

Put little Santa Claus candles on the breakfast table...

 

Had DC leave shoes out on the front porch...and put pretty, new sheets (mattress sheets) "on" them, as their shoes are small and I could not fit them inside...

 

(The practical side of me didn't want to put candy in their shoes, as they have too many opportunities to eat junk around the holidays anyway and I just couldn't find any dollar-store type things yesterday that weren't junky...They were excited to get new sheets on the porch this morning!)

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Rebel Yell

Rebel Yell

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We never have before, but DH wanted to so...

 

Last night we played Ultimate Werewolf with a new card deck or whatever it is... it's played with the iPhone or iPad? And the girls always just wrote characters in paper. I don't get it, but they love it. We also had a weird assortment of convenience store snacks, which was $8.96 well spent.

 

Then we watched Krampus.

 

The girls set their shoes outside their doors, and this morning each got a chocolate treat, Diamond got a $5 80s cd set from Walmart for her car, and SweetChild and BabyBaby got boot socks.

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Arcadia

Arcadia

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My kids celebrated on Saturday in German school. They did the leave a boot outside their classrooms. They get clementines and chocolates coins in their boot.

 

As an aside, where does one find saint statues?

CostPlus World Market stores have plenty of St Nick chocolates and other stuff here. Edited by Arcadia
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scrapbookbuzz

scrapbookbuzz

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Since we'll be a bit late on the celebrating (see above), and I was talking with my dd18 about slippers this morning ( I think we all need some ), I've decided to fit in slipper shopping today and those will be the "shoes" for tonight's celebration. Love the idea of visiting CostPlus World Market,too!

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freesia

freesia

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He sure did come here.  For very complicated reasons, we do our presents on St. Nick's Day and not on Christmas.  So, today was present day.  The kids put out a shoe--not a stocking.  It is filled with chocolate coins, oranges, gingerbread men, candy from dh and any little gifts they give each other.

 

Although, I probably would prefer doing presents on Christmas Day, the up side is that all the gift fever in the little ones is over early in the month instead of growing and growing

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barnwife

barnwife

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As an aside, where does one find saint statues?  Any good, reputable websites you know of?  Thanks!

Pretty much any Catholic store will have saint statues.

 

Totally lame and convinced the kids it wasn't fair to expect St. Nic to show up on the 6th AND the 25th, and since we get stuff in our stockings on the 25th that's enough. 

Wait...this is so un-Catholic!   :tongue_smilie: (Yep, I just made that word up. And, you are Catholic, right?) Clearly, St. Nick shows up on his feast day to thank people for remembering him and his good works. And since he has his priorities straight, he obviously continues his good works to celebrate Jesus' birth.

 

 

That's my story and I am sticking to it with our kids.

 

FWIW, though, he only leaves something small on his day around here. Last year that was mittens and this year a toothbrush. Oh and a couple treats.

 

Signed,

Someone raised Catholic who never got to celebrate St. Nick's day

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ktgrok

ktgrok

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Pretty much any Catholic store will have saint statues.

 

Wait...this is so un-Catholic!   :tongue_smilie: (Yep, I just made that word up. And, you are Catholic, right?) Clearly, St. Nick shows up on his feast day to thank people for remembering him and his good works. And since he has his priorities straight, he obviously continues his good works to celebrate Jesus' birth.

 

 

That's my story and I am sticking to it with our kids.

 

FWIW, though, he only leaves something small on his day around here. Last year that was mittens and this year a toothbrush. Oh and a couple treats.

 

Signed,

Someone raised Catholic who never got to celebrate St. Nick's day

 

 

Well, I'm definitely feeling the Catholic guilt now!!! Ugh! I just haven't had a chance to pick up the chocolate coins or whatever without kids with me! 

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regentrude

regentrude

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We've always followed the German custom of kids putting their shoes by the door and St Nicholas filling them with sweets, fruit and nuts.

DS forgot this year (he came home late last night from out of town), but I put a few things into his shoes.

DD said she did not want any sweets, she has too many, so I did not send her a St Nick's care package.

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JustEm

JustEm

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And, you guys convinced me. Sigh. heading out to get some darned chocolates now. Teen will watch them. I'll just sneak them in their shoes when they aren't looking.

Oh don't let that Catholic guilt and us convince you! Just do what works for your family. We do stockings on St Nicholas day and not Christmas because I want to celebrate today but don't like feeling like I have to do it all. But when I was a kid we knew the story of st Nicholas and acknowledged the day but not with treats or anything. Just with reading a story or something. Stockings were on Christmas and in the spirit of st Nicholas

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AimeeM

AimeeM

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As an aside, where does one find saint statues?  Any good, reputable websites you know of?  Thanks!

I buy them locally, from one of the two Catholic stores we have. These statues in particular were cool because they are for small children. The kids like to move around my (fragile) saint statues so I thought they'd enjoy some of their own (less fragile) saints :)

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Cecropia

Cecropia

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Yes, we woke up bright and early to stockings full of toys and yummy treats!  This was the first year that my oldest two made a bona fide scratch cookie recipe by themselves, where I only helped by scraping down the mixer and tending the oven (yes it was a success, *yummy*).

 

We briefly remember the story of the real St. Nicholas, but the 6th is always a blend of St. Nicholas and Santa Claus stories.  Santa gets this day for all the chimney/elves/reindeer/etc but he sticks to the stockings, and Christmas is reserved for someone more special!  I mentioned this in another thread, but I would have liked to skip the Santa myth completely.  Our relatives started our kids on it at an early age even though I had asked them not to.  I didn't have the heart to tell the boys otherwise... so this is how we came to a compromise (12 yo knows/has grown out of it, 9 yo still half-believes).

 

Now that we live further away from extended family, we might be able to drop Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny with the youngest ones. :hurray:

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kentuckymom

kentuckymom

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Wow, now I'm feeling guilty about how little we do compared to the rest of you :). Of course, we're not Catholic, OR German, OR Dutch, so I figure just acknowledging it at all is a bonus :). We carried over the tradition from DH's family. He grew up in a part of Wisconsin with lots of Catholics of German descent. After he went to kindergarten and heard all the other kids talking about St. Nicholas Day his mom decided she better start acknowledging it.

 

My kids put their shoes on the kitchen table and in the morning they find candy (never chocolate coins because they don't like chocolate - the horror!) and an ornament. There's also a book under the shoe. I used to always do a book related the season, or at least winter, but this year I gave up on finding such a book that my 11 year old would actually read, so he got an Eyewitness book about the Revolutionary War and he was thrilled. The 5 year old girl got a book about a cat that stows away in Santa's bag.

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vonbon

vonbon

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Totally lame and convinced the kids it wasn't fair to expect St. Nic to show up on the 6th AND the 25th, and since we get stuff in our stockings on the 25th that's enough. 

 

 

Pretty much any Catholic store will have saint statues.

 

Wait...this is so un-Catholic!   :tongue_smilie: (Yep, I just made that word up. And, you are Catholic, right?) Clearly, St. Nick shows up on his feast day to thank people for remembering him and his good works. And since he has his priorities straight, he obviously continues his good works to celebrate Jesus' birth.

 

 

That's my story and I am sticking to it with our kids.

 

FWIW, though, he only leaves something small on his day around here. Last year that was mittens and this year a toothbrush. Oh and a couple treats.

 

Signed,

Someone raised Catholic who never got to celebrate St. Nick's day

 

This is particularly funny to me because, as a fairly-recent Catholic convert, last night, my brain was trying to make sense of how I would answer questions about how Santa could come to our house TWO times in December...

 

My kids can be very detail-oriented on questions (interrogations, rather) on these types of things.  Happily, they forgot to ask!   :laugh:

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ktgrok

ktgrok

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So, glad you guys talked me into it. Kids are thrilled. I put chocolate coins and a few chocolate santas in each stocking (well..I put peppermint bark in mine, lol). Then acted like I just realized that we should check the stockings, since we hadn't left shoes out for St. Nick. 

 

They are thrilled. 

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chiguirre

chiguirre

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We did on Saturday, because the saints run on our schedule. ;)

 

Is it just a Catholic thing?

I don't think so, St. Nicholas is BIG in the Netherlands and they're majority protestant (well, historically, now it's mainly a secular holiday thing like Santa and Rudolf and Frosty and the Grinch). Hungarians treat it as a fun, secular holiday and make a bigger deal out of Krampusz than Mikulas.

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J-rap

J-rap

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We used to do this when the kids were younger, leftover from my dh's Irish Catholic childhood.

 

The kids would each leave one shoe out at night near the front door.  In the morning, they'd find chocolates and coins in them.  (Those gold-wrapped chocolate coins were ideal!)

 

 

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RioSamba

RioSamba

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Yes! DD and I put out our wooden clogs, DS10 puts out a slipper, and DS2 puts out a shoe. St. Nicholas leaves everyone a chocolate figure of himself and a small gift, most often a spiritual book. This year it's little devotionals for the big people and a board book for the little one. We keep it very simple, but once in awhile St. Nicholas leaves something extra special, like a beautifully illustrated hardback with a charming advent story.

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Alessandra

Alessandra

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I still have old Dutch wooden shoes from when I was a child. Kids always put those out and find candy in the morning. Even as teens they like the candy.

 

Today I baked Pfeffernusse cookies from a recipe of Daisy's (a boardie from long ago) and gingerbread cookies shaped like St Nicholas and covered with these cookie papers.

 

https://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/cookie-papers/#i_5380

 

The website says that they are no longer printing these. I used them on every cookie before I saw this. Now I am wondering if I should save and reuse.... ☹ï¸â˜¹ï¸â˜¹ï¸â˜¹ï¸â˜¹ï¸

Edited by Alessandra
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scrapbookbuzz

scrapbookbuzz

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Well, I found slippers for ALL of us in about two hours of shopping today. Tucked a pair of earbuds in each pair, tied it with a bow, 

and stuck them under the tree before dinner. At dinner, I suggested that after dinner we go to the living room to read from the Advent Book.

DS12 was the first one into the LR and he excclaims, "Christmas shoes!" B-) Anyway, they were a hit!

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luuknam

luuknam

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Well, I dragged the entire family to NL for a month in mid-November to mid-December for Sint Nicolaas's sake (if it weren't for him, I'd have picked a warmer time of year). We missed the national arrival (because I didn't get my passport in time to buy plane tickets when they were still affordable), but we went to a local arrival a week later (we're even in some of the photos, hidden in the background):

 

http://dagsinterklaasje.nl/

 

After Sinterklaas arrived, the kids got to put out their shoes once every few days (not every day, that'd be too much). You sing to Sinterklaas when you put out your shoe (and maybe leave a carrot for Sinterklaas's horse), a common song would be "Sinterklaas kapoentje", and you sing when you find something in your shoe in the morning, e.g. "O, kom er eens kijken" (you can find various renditions of Sinterklaas songs on Youtube). So, they got a chocolate letter (first letter of their name) one time, and a prikblok* another time, etc.

 

*You put a mat under picture, and then you use a needle to perforate the dots - preschoolers & kindergartners in NL do this kind of thing at school (it's not specific to Sinterklaas though - you can find them with dinosaurs or cars etc as well): https://www.stnicholascenter.org/media/gallery/childrens-things/puzzles-games/prikblok2-dbl.jpg

 

They even got to color, fold, and glue a shoe from a grocery store and put it in the grocery store, and then the grocery store put a little present in the shoe.

 

Then, on Dec 5, it was pakjesavond (present evening). So, we had presents and a banketstaaf (pastry). And that's it. In Belgium they do Sinterklaas on Dec 6, iiuc, but in NL pakjesavond on Dec 5 is the end.

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