Saint Nicholas Feast Day is now officially a tradition as we celebrated with our good friends for the third year in a row.
Our favorite activity is making marzipan fruits. (Please note that the finished product of our 5 and 3 year olds did not look like the pictures at the link, but they were priceless.)
We ate Bishop's hat mini pizzas,
and found gold coins in our shoes.
After eating, creating, and playing, it was time to settle down for St. Nicholas stories, coloring, and games. (Lots of fun stuff available at the St. Nicholas Center For Kids.)
We'll be continuing this tradition in the years to come!
St Nicholas, the patron saint of Russian merchants. Fresco by Dionisius from the Ferapontov Monastery.
I beat you! I already voted for you a couple of days ago! ;-)
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I really like this tradition. Do your kids associate the modern Santa with St. Nick? (do you talk about the change over the years in the story? or do you just enjoy the day and let the kids come to their own conclusions?)
ReplyDeleteWe haven't made a big deal (either direction) out of the modern santa. The kids enjoy seeing him at the mall or on TV, but they don't actually think that their gifts come from santa (or stockings).
ReplyDeleteWe did connect the traditions together... that the legend of Saint Nicholas (we don't know exactly what is fact) is what started our legend of Santa. We talked about how other countries celebrate St. Nick/Santa.
I would have to work *really* hard to fool Levi. :) We said the gold coins in the shoes were from Saint Nicholas, but he told me he had seen them on my desk and I must have put them there, LOL. Levi's friend was asking whether St. Nicholas was in heaven.
It is nice to have a separate day to talk about and celebrate 'St. Nick' so that we can put more emphasis on baby Jesus on Christmas day. :)
(Sarah~ I voted for you, too. :))
My little nieces are German and so I knit them little toys early for St Nicholas Day. Perhaps this year we should celebrate too. I love the gold coins in the shoes, adorable!
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