Do you do the St. Nick Tradition?
Does your family celebrate the St. Nick Tradition? I assumed everyone’s did, but I am finding out many do not know about him, especially in the United States, so I just wanted to take a second to explain in my own words.
St. Nick visiting is an old German Tradition my Mother always did for us kids, even as we got older. On the Eve of December 5th, Us kids would put outside our bedroom door our shoe or boot, or hang our Christmas Stocking so St. Nick could fill it with goodies! This usually included a nice little note letting us know if we had been Naughty or Nice and what we needed to improve on. (Of course always signed St.Nick) If you have been extra naughty, you would not get any goodies, just a lump of coal. (And yes, I had a few years of Coal)
I think St. Nick is a great thing to start as a family tradition for a few reasons. The first being, Kids get sooooo excited for the holidays, it is a nice way to settle them down a bit with just a few little goodies and trinkets. It is also a nice tradition they will carry on with their family. My grandmother did it, my mother did it, and I also did this for our son. It is a great way to help build your Childs self esteem, When you write the letter, of course there will be a few “Need to improves” on there, but you can sandwich these comments with praise and appreciation for wonderful things they have done through out the year! Playing nice with their siblings, sharing, helping out around the house, etc.
Another idea I have heard others suggest is making December 5th a family get together, Instead of using their shoes or boots, pick up some of the plain old Red and White Christmas stockings and decorate them as a family event that night, then have them hang them out for St. Nick to fill and leave his special little note in!
Now…Who has heard about the Christmas Pickle? Oh the FUN we have with that on Christmas Morning when it is hidden in the Christmas Tree!
~ Micki
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I absolutely LOVE the idea to decorate the stockings the night before!! My daughter is 3 1/2 and my son is 1 1/2 so they would get a kick out of playing with glitter, fuzz balls, puffy paint.. I’m sure it will be a mess but great memories will be made I’m sure <3 Thanks for the idea!! 🙂
We have done fun lessons at church on St. Nicholas. We even got the maintenance man to dress up like him and the kids took pictures with him!
When we were little we never really did this BUT we did something similar on January 6th (the epiphany) we would leave our shoes out for the good italian witch Befana. The tale is that when the 3 wise men got lost they ended up at her house and she told them the way to baby jesus 🙂
So you leave your shoes out for her and she fills it with candy and little trinkets. We used to try and find our BIGGEST shoe to get the most stuff 🙂
I heard about St Nick from Christmas movies and stories, but I have never known about December 5th as “stocking day”. This does sound like a fun family activity, especially if there are small children in the home.
I think it is funny you mentioned the pickle tradition! My boyfriend and I just read about this yesterday when we were looking at ornaments at Walmart and found the pickle ornament!!! I loved the idea behind it!
I celebrated this as a kid. We never got a letter though just goodies in our stockings:) Now I am married with 2 kids and want to continue this tradition. My husband when i told him has never heard of this, but he is willing to go along with it:) My mother said she used to get nuts and large oranges in their shoes. We got candy and small toys or movies. This year we plan on doing it, i love the idea of a letter from St Nick! Need to do that tonight…but i will be giving small toys and a movie and some ornaments for our little new addition to the family:) We loved St Nick cause it the first present to open and kept us settled for the next couple of weeks until Christmas.
We also did the Christmas Pickle and I was awesome at it…we hid the pickle on the tree and whomever found it first got to open the first gift!!
Can’t wait to celebrate these traditions its so much fun:) Enjoy all and happy holidays!!
This is actually our first year doing it. We are putting Christmas movies and a few pieces of candy, along with a note for my 8 year old that says “I left you a few goodies to enjoy for when your homework and chores are done with. I have noticed that you haven’t been focusing as much on homework as you do boys, so I am letting you know that I DO have a little helper at your house checking up on you and your brother…be sure to watch out for her.” hahaha….I ended up getting an elf today…:o) So that’s my way of introducing her to them!