Getting Ready for Saint Nicholas

There was much anticipation as the children pulled out their wooden shoes for the arrival of Saint Nicholas tonight and filled them with carrots and hay for his horse :)

We have spent the last couple of days reading some of our favorite books like the Legend of Saint Nicholas and The Baker's Dozen and of course we had to pull out our Veggie Tale movie of Saint Nicholas as well. It just wouldn't be complete without the veggies *grin*.

I've been sneakily collecting a few special books for their gifts in the morning and this year to make their gifts special I made these little wreaths with holly leaves. I just cut out a cardboard wreath shape and then used my hot glue gun to glue them all around the cardboard circle. Really easy and I think I'm going to make a bunch more for the rest of my christmas gifts :)

 I just love how they turned out and now I'm off to fill their shoes with nuts and other goodies before they wake up because I know they will be up before the first light of morning. There will be no sleeping late for mama tomorrow :)

Hugs,

Rosina

Happy St. Nicholas Day

Oh the joy that filled our house this morning as sleepy children raced to the front door to see what Saint Nicholas had left in their shoes!

Waiting for each of them was a little burlap sack and a brown paper bundle tied with string.

There was a special Christmas book enclosed for each of them and all sorts of nuts and oranges to eat along with a delicious chocolate St. Nicholas for later :)

We made Nicholas shaped cookies using this speculaas recipe which is so yummy with its ground almonds in the dough and lots of spice and the children had fun decorating him with raisins, chocolate chips and sunflower seeds :)

One of the things that we really wanted to do was pack a little tin full and surprise someone with it in secret but since our closest neighbor is my mother we thought it would be fun to see if we could get away with dropping it off at her door and not getting caught!

So with the cookie tin in hand all three of the children raced up to her house as fast as they could and then snuck as quietly as they could to the door, banged on it hard and then ran for their lives LOL.

A few minutes later the phone rang of course asking if it had been us and we denied it *grin*. She had no idea where they had come from so it was a very successful ding dong ditch LOL.

Did you celebrate Saint Nicholas' Day? I would love to pop over and see what you did to make it special :)

Hugs,
Rosina

St. Nicholas Eve & The Krampus

Today we spent some time drawing in our lesson books little pictures of Saint Nicholas as we wait for his arrival tonight :)

Every year on December 5th Saint Nicholas returns to earth on his white horse and visits the homes of children leaving them gifts in their shoes that have been set out by the door.

When I was a little girl my father would tell us tales of St. Nicholas from when he was a little boy in Austria and of how St. Nicholas would visit their house in the evening and occasionally with him came the Krampus. A devil like beast with chains that would chase them around if they were found to have been bad until they promised that they would behave better from then on. Of course the chase was frightening but if they promised to be good they were rewarded with treats from St. Nicholas :)

Now the Krampus never visited us thank goodness but that definitely puts a new spin on the old 'you better watch out, you better be good' saying for old Santa Claus. If I knew the scary man with the chains was coming I would have been on my best behavior a lot more *grin*.

So with their shoes out, filled with carrots for for St. Nicholas' horse and a little note, the children all went to bed dreaming of what surprise they will find in the morning :)

Hugs,
Rosina