Jolly Old St. Nicholas

Christmas is such a memory filled time for me! I remember singing carols in the car with my parents and grandparents - and for some reason we were always going somewhere through the cold dark winter evenings. To visit friends, to have cookies and hot chocolate, to share presents, to watch the "living nativity" scene at the church, to see the houses all decorated with lights. Do you know the Jolly Old St. Nicholas tune?

Jolly Old St. Nicholas lean your ear this way!
Don't you tell a single soul what I'm going to say:
Christmas Eve is coming soon; Now, you dear old man
Whisper what you'll bring to me; Tell me if you can.

When the clock is striking twelve, When I'm fast asleep
Down the chimney, broad and black, With your pack you'll creep
All the stockings you will find Hanging in a row
Mine will be the shortest one, You'll be sure to know

Bobby wants a pair of skates, Suzy wants a sled
Nellie wants a picture book, Yellow, blue, and red
Now I think I'll leave to you What to give the rest
Choose for me, dear Santa Claus; You will know the best.

Oh, my grandmother always emphasized those last two lines - and oh, how that made me want to be just like the singer of the tune. Trusting in Santa, never asking for what I really wanted. I thought that the only way to be truly good and sweet was to never ask for anything. Of course, I was only little and bound to disappoint, and my Christmas Lists were always long letters filled with dreamy big toys that I mostly didn't get - but I learned that it was ok to dream big, and that giving is honestly as wonderful as getting - many times even more wonderful.

As we come into the holidays I find that I appreciate more and more the gift of family time and the great tradition of giving that we are fortunate to share. Today, at our house, we celebrate St. Nicholas Day (December 6th) with little gifts. We talk about how St. Nicholas lived a tradition of giving, and that he gave in secret. We chose names and then do secret things for each other all through the month, to teach our littlest ones the joy of simple gifts and simple giving. For example, last year several times during the month the cat litter was clean when I went to clean it, and sometimes the dishwasher was unloaded. One evening I even found a pretty neat hand made bookmark on my pillow. On Christmas Day I learned that my grandson had been my secret "St. Nick!"

Joy in giving and graciousness in receiving are two of the wonderful things we experience all through our lives, but these seem to have more focus during the holidays. I rejoice in these gifts whenever they occur, but like many of us, I absolutely love the opportunity to renew family traditions and spend time with loved ones. Our BBEST team members have created some wonderful goodies that really make sharing the time honored traditions at my house even more wonderful, allowing us to enjoy the moments for -

Playing games,

Tic Tac Toe from SixSisters

Crayon Caddy from Stitches By Julie 4 Kids

Making cookies & sharing treats,

Trinket Bowl from Chris1

Making gifts,

Mini Fold Book from MisterPenQuin

And sending Christmas Cards - every year our list gets longer!

Christmas Note Cards from PFDOriginalArtworks

I hope you all have time to enjoy yourselves this holiday season, and wish each of you much success and good days the whole new year through!




And psssst! St. Nicholas, if you really must know, these have stolen my heart. :)

Ruby Heart Earrings from MagdaleneJewels

Happiest of Holidays to you all!

Sint Nicholas, Sinterklaas, Saint Nicholas

The month of December means different things to different people.  The well known celebration for most is, of course, Christmas with all its religious and pagan festivals.  However, earlier in the month Holland, Belgium and France and other Roman Catholic countries celebrate St Nicholas, the patron saint of children.  Other countries also celebrate including North America who call him Santa Claus.

It was alleged that during the American War of Independence, the inhabitants of New York, a former Dutch colonial town known as New Amsterdam, reinvented the Sinterklaas tradition as a symbol of the city's non English past!

Sinterklaas has a long white beard, wears a red bishop's dress and red mitre, or bishop's hat, and holds a long gold coloured staff with a fancy curled top. Sinterklaas carries a big book with all the children's names in it, which states whether they have been naughty or nice in the past year.

The temperament of Sinterklaas differs in some regions of the Netherlands and Belgium. In the Netherlands Sinterklaas is usually a nice, forgiving person. In Belgium, on the other hand, Sinterklaas is less forgiving (like he used to be in the Netherlands). He can be quite severe and takes naughty children back to Spain when they were not nice. "Saint-Nicolas" rides a white horse which gallops across the roof tops.

Traditionally Sinterklaas has a helper called Zwarte Piet who will give out treats to the children like sweets, ginger biscuits.  However, if the children have been naughty throughout the year he will fetch the children to stand in front of Sinterklaas to be admonished. Etsy has a very good article about this feast http://www.etsy.com/storque/handmade-life/sinterklaas-a-crafty-tradition-544/

On the eve of Sinterklaas (5 December) all children place a shoe filled with a carrot, some straw for the white horse.  In the morning these items would be replaced by a traditional chocolate letter (usually their initial), speculaas (a shortbread type biscuit), chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil and a chocolate figurine of Sinterklaas wrapped in foil.  Songs would be sung to celebrate his coming journey to their houses.

Children were told that Zwarte Piet (Black Peter) looked that way because he had to descend the chimneys which made his hands and face appear black.  If children had been naughty he would leave a bag of salt rather than sweet treats.  If the children had been particularly naughty they were told that they risked being put in a sack and taken back to Spain where Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet lived for the rest of the year.  This story is no longer told as you can imagine!  However, I can well remember those stories when I was a child being brought up in a Dutch colony.  Parents and children would gather in the local community hall where Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet would appear.   With them they carried a golden book with the names of all the children who had been good that year and another book which was black in which the names of naughty children had been recorded.  Sinterklaas would start to look for a child's name in his 'good' book and scare the child by not finding it initially.  For obvious reasons this practice has been discouraged!  However, I remember it well and it put the fear of God into me - not that I had been naughty, of course!!

Nowadays, the feast of Sinterklaas has become as commercialised as any large celebration but it is still fun, especially all the sweet treats!  To learn more about this great tradition visit this link where the history is explained in more detail http://www.thehollandring.com/sinterklaas.shtml

So, my friends, I do not have any items to show off from my BBEST friends this time but I just thought this article might be of interest.  Remember to put your shoe outside your room and to put a carrot or straw in it; maybe even a bowl of water.  Who knows, if you have been good Zwarte Piet may leave some sweet treats for you!!!!