ST NICHOLAS DAY: JAMES' FAMILY HOW TO- PART ONE

It helps to remind myself what I’m up to as a Father on the feast days of the Saints. Off the cuff it seems to me that I’m wanting to 1) provide an opportunity for my family to be together as a family 2) Reinforce my children’s self identity as being a part of a distinct and alien people with distinct and alien views of reality 3) through distinctive rituals 4) and stories 5) Provide positive examples of lives lived in fulfillment of that Christian identity 6) Center all of this in the God who calls us his own through acts of worship and prayer.

Our celebration of the life of our elder brother St. Nicholas provides an opportunity to do each of these things. In our home the festivity involves three distinctive elements:

1) Pretending about St Nicholas’s visitation during the night before December 6th
2) A special breakfast
3) The telling of stories about this blessed saint with a prayer of thanksgiving for his example.

There’s a central yarn that’s told about this generous man that seems to work its way into most of the day’s symbols. It’s the origin of our tradition of hanging stockings on the mantle, and it’s important enough to briefly tell now. This version is taken from the St. Nicholas center:

One story tells of a poor man with three daughters. In those days a young woman's father had to offer prospective husbands something of value—a dowry. The larger the dowry, the better the chance that a young woman would find a good husband. Without a dowry, a woman was unlikely to marry. This poor man's daughters, without dowries, were therefore destined to be sold into slavery. Mysteriously, on three different occasions, a bag of gold appeared in their home-providing the needed dowries. The bags of gold, tossed through an open window, are said to have landed in stockings or shoes left before the fire to dry. This led to the custom of children hanging stockings or putting out shoes, eagerly awaiting gifts from Saint Nicholas. Sometimes the story is told with gold balls instead of bags of gold. That is why three gold balls, sometimes represented as oranges, are one of the symbols for St. Nicholas. And so St. Nicholas is a gift-giver.

Okay. Let’s take a look at what St. Nicholas Day looks like at our home.

1) St. Nicholas Visitation

On the evening of December 5th each of the children put their shoes just outside of their bedroom doors. Each child places a carrot in one of their shoes. To understand this you need to know that St. Nicholas Day is huge in many European countries. Each year TV coverage is given to the ancient Bishop coming ashore on horseback- complete with Mitre and Crosier. The carrots are a sort of Old World version of milk and cookies, but instead of being for jolly 'ole St. Nick, they are a treat for the Bishop’s horse.

The next morning everyone in our house gets up earlier than normal. Esther usually starts the commotion. She peeks out her bedroom door to find that each carrot has been nibbled down to a stub, and every pair of shoes contains a very small and inexpensive gift. Along with the small gift (or during particularly tight years this item is the small gift) there is always a bag of golden wrapped chocolate coins. These coins are meant to remind us of the story of the three daughters and the importance of generous giving.

Items needed:
1) Our Children’s shoes
2) Carrots
3) Chocolate Coins. I’ve been able to find these every year at Dollar type stores- Dollar Tree, Dollar General, etc.

I’ll pick up the other two elements of food and story in the next post.