Feast of St. Nicholas 2011

Our family's home altar decorated for Advent 

For St. Nicholas' feast day, the children received presents for their minds (books), bodies (toothbrushes), and souls (rosary pouches), as well as sweet treats. They also received a gift with which they are supposed to do good deeds for others.

 Margaret ate almost her whole cookie. She being my third child, I was happy for her enjoyment instead of worrying about her eating a sugar-laden cookie. At least a cookie has some substance, unlike yesterday when she found some spilled brown sugar on the kitchen floor and sat there eating it quietly and my only response was, "I'm so glad she has stopped crying."

I received a generous coupon which enabled me to have rosary pouches made for all five of us. On one side is the person's photo and name, and on the other side is our family photo. The children were very eager about them, despite Mary's bland expression here.

Then we enjoyed as fancy a breakfast as I could manage this year with three little kids: some of grandmother's nice table pieces, chunky wine glasses for their plain water so the children could "be fancy," and pancakes as traditionally served in Germany on St. Nicholas' day.

Then we had some friends over so we could share the blessings of this lovely feast day during Advent! I set up a table (with grandmother's beautiful lace cloth!) with items to help teach about St. Nicholas. Note to self: It is exceedingly difficult to keep the attention of a room full of children ages 2 to 6 (with four babies crawling amidst them), even when reading from what I thought was a children's level booklet about St. Nicholas but turned out to be at too advanced of a level. So tricky! I admire cheery Kindergarten teachers who know how to do these sorts of things.

After story time, we ate St. Nicholas cookies, oranges, and hot chocolate.

Chocolate coins with St. Nicholas pictures glued to both sides

For future reference, you can learn everything you ever wanted to know plus far more besides about St. Nicholas at the St. Nicholas Center. That is also a source where you can buy items related to celebrating St. Nicholas.

I am so glad I was able to have this little get-together and celebrate with our children in this way! As it was, I needed help from my husband and my babysitter to manage it all. I am only too aware that I am only able to do lovely things like this right now because I do not have the blessings of being pregnant or having a newborn. Those are times for using paper plates, eating store-bought cookies, and popping in our St. Nicholas DVD and calling it a day!