Jolly Old St. Nicholas

Growing up we celebrate S. Nicholas Day.  I am not sure if this is a Catholic thing or a Christian thing but I do know John didn't know much about this so I had to teach him a little bit about it.  There is a great website out there that is all things St. Nicholas Day.  St. Nicholas Center  In fact it is interesting that many of our Christmas traditions come from this man such as the Christmas Stocking, the Candy Cane, and of course Santa looks an awful lot like this Bishop.  

This year I wasn't sure if St. Nicholas came the night before Dec. 6th or on Dec 6th so he came to our house the night of Dec. 6th.  I now know he comes the eve before ;).  Some people celebrate by putting thier shoes out and when they wake up they are filled with goodies.  Others celebrate by hanging their stockings and that is what gets filled.  Some state that St. Nicholas would toss gold coins into the windows of homes and it will land in the stockings drying on the fireplace.  I think next year we are going to switch to using our stockings since  clearly our stuff doesn't fit in the shoes :)

For us, St. Nicholas will bring our Christmas PJs, a book (I am all about the books), and an ornament.  He even brought John and I some PJ pants too as well as our little Pella ornament.  

Please excuse these photos...they were taken with my phone and in poor lighting :)

I think John was pretty excited for Elsie to see what St. Nick brought.  He kept asking when we could wake Elsie up to see what she got.  

She was really interested in her ornament and carried it around until I took it away at breakfast.  Right now it is sitting on her dresser and she loves to pull up and look at it.  

This was her later that night in her new Christmas PJs (one of her like 6 pairs).