It’s that time of the year when our family get’s together for St. Nicholas Day. If you are new to St. Nicholas Day, it’s usually celebrated on the eve of December 5th and the official St. Nicholas Day is December 6th. I know that if you look up the tradition of St. Nicholas Day you’ll see that they say that eventually in American traditions St. Nicholas had turned into Santa Claus. But in our family, we had both St. Nicholas and Santa Claus. First a history lesson. Here is what I always heard the legend of St. Nick:
“One story tells of a poor man with three daughters. In those days a young woman’s father had to offer prospective husbands something of value—a dowry. The larger the dowry, the better the chance that a young woman would find a good husband. Without a dowry, a woman was unlikely to marry. This poor man’s daughters, without dowries, were therefore destined to be sold into slavery. Mysteriously, on three different occasions, a bag of gold appeared in their home-providing the needed dowries. The bags of gold, tossed through an open window, are said to have landed in stockings or shoes left before the fire to dry. This led to the custom of children hanging stockings or putting out shoes, eagerly awaiting gifts from Saint Nicholas”
And the reason that it’s celebrated on December 6th? That is the day that he died as a Bishop.
When I talk about St. Nicholas day with some of my friends that didn’t grow up around this area, they really don’t know what in the world that I’m talking about. But in our family – well it’s a tradition that has been celebrated now since 1927 – 87 years! That’s a pretty good tradition now isn’t it? How I remember St. Nicholas day when I was a kid was that all my cousins would get together and then someone would yell “He’s HERE”. I know that I was pretty little one time when I remember hearing the famous words – He’s HERE, and one of my cousins went and hid under the bed. One of the ‘big’ cousins (maybe a 10 or 12 year old one) took a hold of the legs of this kid and pulled them out and down the steps we all went. Now in those days it was a little scarier. I mean not only did you have St. Nicholas, but you also had Krampus. Krampus is the Christmas Devil that sometimes travels with St. Nick. So coming down those stairs you knew that St. Nicholas would be there, but sometimes Krampus would be with him and he’d have a stick that scared the daylights out of you. Now I never remember Krampus using the stick or for that matter I don’t even remember seeing the coal that he said that he carried around with him. But he said that he had it, and well that was more than good for me to believe he did! After a couple of prayers, he’d leave us with a bag of nuts,fruit, and those round red hard candies. This candy is means Christmas to me and in my opinion I don’t think you should even eat them unless it’s around Christmas time 🙂
As the years passed, so did the way that we celebrated the day. We would later get a bag left on the porch with walnuts, peanuts, and fruit in it. But coincidentally it was only left after we got the cows milked and the chores were done. Funny how that works isn’t it.
Now we celebrate the day only with St. Nicholas (whew!) and Christmas songs have replaced the prayers for all the adults and kids. But there’s always tons of food
I couldn’t get the other table of more desserts in the picture!
and I think just as much apprehension to sit on St. Nick’s lap
I love this picture of these 3 little boys patiently waiting with their lists to sit on St. Nick’s lap.
Finally the last picture was of a couple of the little kids watching St. Nick leave. Without much snow, they wanted to sneak a peak on just exactly he came here! I hear so many times on how kids are so much different than they were back in day, but honestly I think kids are still kids and will always be the same around Christmas time. 