Celebrating St. Nicholas Day!

Celebrating St. Nicholas Day today with my family! This is a tradition that our Mom and her family did when she was young, we did when we were young, and now us kids share the tradition with our families. The afternoon was spent with everyone showing up for about an hour before the special guest arrives. When our family gets together, not only do we just like hanging out, but we also like to eat good food. And since this was going to be a pot luck, there was just as much food coming in the Roadhouse and there was kids. Tables were set up for the food and soon the kid’s coats were off and then they went off running and playing. There was ping pong, ball games, Wii, and just about any other type of toy that you would want. We keep a couple of totes of the boy’s old toys in the Roadhouse and I think when we have kids come over, they get played with quite a bit. You know when you’re cleaning the toy room and it seems like you should just pack them up and give them to Good Will? Well, I’m glad that I kept some just for these times when we have kids here.

Getting the toys out to play

Next thing to do? St. Nicholas of course is soon knocking on the door. It’s so fun to see the little kids try to act cool, but you can see inside they’re really almost busting at the seams.

Taking turns on St. Nick’s lap

After all the little kids take turns sitting on Santa’s lap and reading what they had on their Christmas list, it was time to take some group photos. This is always interesting with my family. It seems like about half of the group is paying attention and the other half is not. But we do eventually get everything together and pictures are snapped. Now we are also trying to hurry because St. Nicholas isn’t used to being inside so much and with all the people sitting on his lap and the heater not too far from the chair that he sits on, well it gets kind of warm. But he stuck with it and did a fantastic job! After a couple of songs sung by the kids, off he went for another year. My families presents were handed out and I think they all like them. I was kind of nervous that they would think that they were weird, but if they did think that, no one said it out loud. After the gifts were done, off to making Christmas ornaments for Ma. My sister and niece organized everyone having an ornament to make and then they went home with Mom to put on her tree. What a great idea and it gave everyone, both kids and adults something to work on before we ate.

Everyone making their own Christmas ornament for Mom’s tree

Speaking of eating, we ended up with a couple of tables of food and what a variety. With no one knowing what anyone else was bringing, I don’t think we had any doubles of anything. I do know that I think I tried everything, and it was all really good.

Good fun and good food!

With our bellies full and with having a fun afternoon, everyone packed up their cars and headed back home. I know that I’ve said this before, but I just would have loved for Daryl’s parents to have seen the good times that we’ve had so far in the Roadhouse. Or how they remember it, the Farrowing house.