St. Nicholas Day (eve) Shenanegans

Making believe with her Christmas Village minions

In the spirit of keepin' it jolly this year, we've been observing many holiday traditions.  We started off by decorating the tree...and then things seemed to trickle to the rest of the house.  Audrey and Bailey have been absolutely fascinated by the Christmas village Marlene puts up every year.  The plush Snowmen, penguins, and animated musical Christmas toys have been making the rounds. John attempted to pull a Clark W. Griswold in decorating the exterior of the house, but was soon poo-pooed by his overbearing wife.  (I'm happy to report that we now have a very tasteful display of twinkle lights to greet us any time we come home after dark.)  We've gone out to look at Christmas lights, decorated a gingerbread house with the fantastic Hilliard kids...you name it.  If it's jolly, we're all over it. 

We use 'decorating' and 'eating' interchangeably around here...

And today, we've done something that I hope will go down in the annals as our newest holiday tradition.

John and I have talked about celebrating St. Nicholas Day since before we had kids, but we haven't really felt like either of the girls were able to understand the meaning behind it until this year.  So, naturally, I decided to pull out all the stops and make a big deal out of it.  I mean, this is stockings we're talking about.  I have so many happy memories of waking up Christmas morning and being handed the same familiar, over-sized red stocking full of fruit, nuts, chocolate and always a wrapped gift or two.  You might be able to say that opening my stocking was as comforting as knowing there would be pie for breakfast the day after Christmas.  It's that good.

So, understandably, I am unwilling to let St. Nicholas Day be an uneventful day in which the girls happen to get some presents stuffed in a sock.  Oh, no.  And I'm also stubborn enough to want them to understand that this is also a part of the Christmas story; that St. Nicholas was a generous man because it was an extension of his love for Christ.

So...we I went a little crazy.

My little elves packing our St. Nick gifts

I'm ashamed to say that I don't personally know anyone I would consider needy--no one who would welcome a gift of food or clothing because they genuinely are in need of it.  That's something I need to work on.  But, since this is a new thing and we are just beginning, I decided we would gift our neighbors with a little something.

...for all seventeen of them.

The girls and I loaded up gift bags with the things I remember fondly pulling out of my stocking as a child:  apples, oranges, pears, grapefruits, mixed nuts in the shell, and of course: chocolate.  We also included a note telling them Happy St. Nicholas Day with an explanation that this offering was symbolic of our love for them as we love Christ.

Enjoying a treat after all that hard work

...And that's not all.

After a St. Nicholas Day feast, we packed the car full of the gift bags and headed out into the night to covertly deliver our packages.  Even though I had been working on this concept with Audrey for days, she was still confused.  Why are we putting on snow boots with our pajamas?  Why is Dad following us in the car while we go on a walk?  Bailey, in particular, was not happy that the gifts she had lovingly packed were seemingly abandoned to strangers' doorsteps in the night.  But, we had fun.  It was a new beginning to a really fun tradition. And I hope we will be able to keep it up in the years to follow.

Cheers!

When we finished delivering our packages, we came home for some celebratory chocolate milk (since my girls won't drink hot cocoa...yet.) and had a very thorough discussion about how they thought our neighbors would feel when they realized in the morning that someone had left them a gift.  It was around that point that I could see the light bulbs going off...at least for Audrey.  Bailey was really just jazzed to be drinking chocolate milk at 8pm and kept making toasts.

Anyway,  If you think that was where I left it, you clearly don't know me.  It's not even St. Nicholas Day yet!  All of that was just a set up for the girls to understand why they would wake up in the morning to giant stockings full of presents and a rockin' breakfast.  I can't wait for them to wake up, to see their faces light up when they see their stockings stuffed to the brim and to live a little vicariously through their joy.  Ain't parenting grand?

 Happy St. Nicholas Day (eve) to all!  And to all a good night!