St Nick's

What can I say about this HOliday? Not much except, every year since Paul and I have been married, it has been a tradition, carried from his family to ours to celebrate St Nick's by filling our stockings with gifts. Usually candy and such. This year however, I think we've gone above and beyond the fitting in stocking tradition.

Fist a little history on St Nick's, the tradition of St. Nicholas is not synonomous with the role of Santa Claus in the U.S.. As practiced in many European countries, the celebration of St. Nicholas is separate from the Christmas holidays, and occurs during the 2 weeks prior to December 6th, which is St. Nicholas's day. Sometimes St. Nicholas Day is the main holiday for gift giving, and not Christmas.

In Germany, St. Nicholas is also known as Klaasbuur, Sunnercla, Burklaas, Bullerklaas, and Rauklas, and in eastern Germany, he is also known as Shaggy Goat, Ash Man and Rider and is more reflective of earlier pagan influences (Norse) that were blended in with the figure of St. Nicholas, when Christianity came to Germany. After the reformation, St. Nicholas's attire began to change, maybe as a reflection of the change from the Roman church, and he started to wear a red suit with fur. His dark-skinned helper is most often known as Knecht Ruprecht. Although he still visits many homes on Dec 5th/6th and leaves candy and gifts in the children's shoes, more recently St. Nicholas has begun showing up on Christmas Eve in Germany and is called Father Christmas.

In the Netherlands, families celebrate St Nicholas's birthday the night before his feast day (December 6th). At one point during the evening, a loud knock will herald the arrival of Sinterklaas and at the same time candy may be thrown from upstairs; when the door is opened, a bag of gifts will be on the doorstep.

For families with older children and adults, different twists are added to the gift giving and may include gag gifts or the drawing of gift ideas or names, and most times are accompanied by poems with a "personal touch" that poke fun at the recipient in a gentle way (or not, depending on the families ;) ). Wrapping the presents up in odd packages and planting a trail of clues is also part of the general fun, and can sometimes be pretty tricky to get to, depending on the squeamishness of the recipients.

So .. now that you've had the history lesson. This year for St Nick's I got Paul or St Nick's got Paul a Wii game (Are you smarter than a 5th grader), some golf balls and candy!!! He loved it! The game is actually fun. Paul on the other hand, was awaiting a gift card to get my gift, which originally was to be the wii music game but I talked him into getting "Rockband" (Thanks Bob & Jen)I discovered Rockband while visiting my Sister, Brother, and his family is Las Vegas and it was pretty fun. Paul wasn't sure .. but once the box was open and instruments unwrapped .. away we went and played for 2 hours long. Here are a few pictures of the gift!!!!