As a Christian family we are constantly trying to find ways to celebrate this most special and holy time of year. It can be tricky with all the commercialism to find Christ at Christmas. But amidst all the hustle and bustle, partying and presents we have managed to create a few special traditions that our special to us, and today is one of them.
A few years ago inspired by a Mops speaker my sister decided to add some new Christmas traditions to our family that really bring the true meaning of Christmas to light. One of those is the celebration of St. Nicks Day. Having celebrated this for 4 years in my high school french class, this one was really inspiring to me, so I have added the tradition to my family too. We bake cookies or make some special treats to give as a special surprise to secret pals that each family member has picked. Then after dinner we drive around and secretly deliver them ringing the doorbell and running away. When we get home we leave our shoes outside the door and hope that St. Nick will come and deliver a goodie to us. Every year we have been fortunate enough to have a special St Nick treat or two delivered to us by secret pals as well.
St Nicholas was a real saint who lived long ago. He dedicated his life to serving God, and followed Jesus' teachings to sell what you own and give to the poor. Many legends surround him and he is known as one who preformed miracles and did kind deeds for children, the poor and the sick often bringing them money or treats. He is known as the saint of children, unmarried women and sailors for various miracles he preformed.
We celebrate St Nicks day as one way to show love and kindness to those we care about. We talk about being thoughtful and generous and glorifying Jesus in all we do. And we have a lot of fun doing it!
This year we celebrated just as in years past. We made several batches of cookie dough in the morning, in the afternoon we baked and packed cookies up. We packed in the car without eating dinner because we also had a Twins Club party to attend so we delivered some packages in early evening and some late after the party. We got caught twice, but didn't let it spoil our fun! When we came home, after putting our shoes out we settled into our jammies and went to bed. We awoke the next moning to find a special new christmas ornament for each of us in our shoe along with a candy cane... yum! Sadie got a bike ornament for learning to ride her bike and being persistant, Philip got candy cane made of bells because he learned the true meaning of the sweet treat, Addie got a star because she loves to be the kid of the day, and Carter got a wagon because he loves to ride and share the fun.
