Kind old man Saint Nicholas dear...

Saint Nicholas (and other figures) custom made for us by Armadillo Dreams

Little L playing with the new figures on the play kitchen he just recently ‘decorated’ in pen

Anyone care to translate? K swears she can read this with 3 months of German lessons under her belt and all…

Since  K has been home sick from school we spent the past couple of days reading Saint Nicholas by Jakob Streit. It was a bit too old for C’s ears but she was too busy playing with Little L to pay any mind to it. Reading about his life made K and I want to start a new St. Nicholas day tradition - doing something to help children in need. It can be anything to help but we both feel that would truly be celebrating him.

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We began our night time rhythm on Wednesday night with my children placing their shoes by our front door, stuffed with carrots for St. Nicholas’ donkey. Then after our usual routine we sang a round of ‘Kind Old Man St. Nicholas Dear’ and went to bed. Let me correct myself here, they were tucked in but were much too excited to go to bed and actually stayed up well past their bedtime.

At around midnight I barely had time to act on St. Nicholas’ behalf and switch out their carrots for presents before Little L woke up. I was able to snap a quick picture of their filled shoes for what it’s worth. (lighting is pretty bad in our home and late night lighting is even worse, as I am sure you can imagine) The girls’ excitement carried over to the following morning waking them up at 5:30. I wish I could have seen their little faces when they saw their shoes but alas I was 15 minutes too late. (my alarm goes off at 5:45) They received their usual clementines, honey sticks, a new book to share and wishing walnuts but also another set of Santa Lucia paper dolls (Little L beheaded their last set. Yeah, I am not sure how I feel about that either!), and beautiful wooden figures from Armadillo Dreams. Dustin and Amanda custom made that St. Nicholas you see for K. I only showed them a couple of pictures of St. Nicholas in his traditional Bishop attire and they came up with such a warm representation of him. I am beyond pleased with how he came out. Same goes for C’s Santa Lucia and Little L’s star boy. That may seem like quite a few gifts to you, (well, it does to me!) and I do feel I went a bit overboard this year (there were last minute add ons such as the paper dolls because C was praying he would bring another set after the Little L attack…). But we don’t do Santa Claus in our home, our children know the gifts come from us or family, so this day is quite a big deal.

Oh, I almost forgot to add – K felt well enough to go back to school today and oh what a perfect day to go back. St. Nicholas and Rupert paid a visit to her class. The children were given clementines and wishing walnuts and he even had the golden book to read out of. He told K that she listens very well to her teacher, is helpful and has a loving heart towards her classmates and everyone she comes in contact with. Thank you St. Nicholas, I needed to hear that!

Happy St. Nicholas day! Now to prepare for next week with Our Lady of Guadalupe celebration as well as Santa Lucia day. (Little L’s namesake day.)