St. Nicholas, part 3 -- and last one, we promise!

We hope we've made a good case by now for the benefits of adding in a St. Nicholas Day celebration to your yearly calendar.  We realize that you may be thinking another holiday is the very last thing you need in the short few weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but as has been our premise all along, Christians of all people have the most reasons to celebrate!

And, really, the way many of us observe St. Nicholas Day, it really is not adding in more stuff, festivities, or activities as much as spreading it all out.  Instead of Christmas Day being a giant hodge-podge of Santa-given stockings and multiple gifts.... oh yeah, and Jesus' birthday... it is now a little more parsed out.  The Santa stuff on December 6th, and Jesus on December 25th.  I, for one, have greatly enjoyed having that clear distinction.

Both of the last posts have given plenty of good suggestions for how to celebrate this day, but if you need some more, here are a few:

• Use all your Santa decorations.

• Make all kinds of Santa and reindeer foods, for any meals during the day (See Pinterest for ideas).

• Use this day to bless others around you.  Our family has used the cover of night to "candy cane" a few people's homes each year, decorating their front yard with hundreds of candy canes and then anonymously leaving a note and gift.  We try to pick families who we think could use some encouragement or have a particular need.  (This is our kids' favorite activity of the day, maybe year -- getting to act like stealthy candy-caning ninjas!)

• Get together with friends to enjoy a meal with Middle-Eastern flavors (since St. Nicholas was from Turkey).

Here is a detailed post of how our St. Nicholas Day looked one year.

We hope you enjoy this special day, celebrating and imitating a man who lived a unique life centuries ago!

St. Nicholas, part 2

As mentioned in yesterday's post, we have asked a couple of guest authors to post their ideas and traditions about St. Nicholas Day -- which is coming up on December 6th.  This one is written by Kerry Williamson, who writes The Potter's Shed blog.  She and her husband and four children live in Monroe, North Carolina.

Recently, I’ve been trying to recall when we first started celebrating Saint Nicholas Day.  You see, I sent my eldest off to college this fall, and I’ve found myself reviewing a lot of our family traditions wondering what will “stick” and what won’t as our family begins to really grow up and out.  He’s our first out of the house, but the next two will be coming in close succession.  (Thankfully we have a caboose baby who will delay the final nest-emptying by several years).  Anyway, back to Saint Nicholas . . .

 I was trying to recall when we first started this tradition.  As best I can tell, we seemed to have begun celebrating Saint Nicholas’ feast day (Dec 6^th) somewhere around 2004, when our eldest would have been about 8 years old.  Will it really be our 10^th Saint Nicholas feast celebration this year? 

Neither my husband nor I grew up with Saint Nicholas….only SANTA.  We started it as a way to allow more emphasis to be placed on Christ’s birth on the 25^th, and as a way to honor a great and much-loved saint.  No year’s celebration has really been the same as the year before, though.

Some years we’ve had a great morning feast, goody-filled shoes, new decorations, and a day of movies and fun.

Some years we’ve only put out shoes and decorations

Some years we’ve had shoes only.

But, we’ve celebrated.  And I hope, even if my children don’t continue this tradition in their own homes, that they have developed a love and fondness for a man who loved Christ…and was a REAL person.  It’s what I hope they learn about all the saints we read about (some of whom we feast) – that they were real actual people from history, even if some of their tales are hazy with the mist of legend.

If you are interested in adding this feast day to your family tradition, it can be as elaborate or simple as you can like….in fact start simply!  Pick a tradition or two that works for you and give it a try.  Here are some ideas to get you started…but just check out Pinterest or Google “Saint Nicholas” and you’ll get many more!

• Put shoes out for St Nicholas to fill
• Maybe consider leaving him a nice beer as they do in Belgium to say, “Thank you!”
• Have a breakfast “feast” (this can be a simple as store-bought cinnamon rolls)
• We’ve had gingergread waffles, soft-boiled eggs, peppermint hot cocoa as part of our feast
• Make gingerbread cookies in shape of St Nicholas
• Have some fun with a few days of “Secret Santa” good deeds for each other or neighbors
• Make a St Nick display with all your Santa/Father Christmas/St Nick decorations in one spot
• Read a story about St Nicholas, some ones we like:
• Saint Nicholas by Ann Tompert
• Santa’s Favorite Toy by Hisako Aoki (a sweetly illustrated story that has “Santa” pointing to Christ.)
• Legend of Saint Nicholas by Demi
• Saint Nicholas: The True Story of the Christmas Legend by Julie Steigemeyer
• Wonderworker: The True Story of How Saint Nicholas Became Santa Claus by Vincent Yzermans

You’ll find lots more ideas and resources at the SaintNicholas Center!  You can also read more at my blog: The Potter’s Shed.

St. Nicholas Day, part 1

Since St. Nicholas Day may be an unusual day to celebrate for many of our readers, we've asked a couple of guest authors to share some perspectives and ideas with us.

This first post is written by Anne Kennedy, who writes the blog Preventing Grace.  She and her husband, who is the rector of an Anglican church in Binghamton, New York, are raising six children, and they have celebrated St. Nicholas Day as a family and as a church each year.  Here is her perspective on the traditions and truths of this feast day:

My associations with St. Nicholas are nearly as old as I am. I grew up in a tiny African village, surrounded by people who neither celebrated Christmas nor St. Nicholas, nor any western holiday, including birthdays. But there was a Dutch Missionary Nurse and so besides growing up with a plentiful supply of Dutch pancakes, I also developed a great affection for St. Nicholas and his feast day on December 6th.

There is, for the westerner, an immediate and terrible choice when considering The Feast of St. Nicholas. Are you going to conflate him with Santa Claus and Christmas or keep him separate? Certainly their origins are similar. If you keep them separate, how can you possibly explain the similarity between Saint Nick, with his big white beard and his sack full of lovely toys and St. Nicholas with his thin white beard, weather beaten face and sack of gold coins? You must have your answer ready for an inquiring and clever child who is extremely interested in every single detail and contradiction in your face and words.

"Santa Clause is a fairy," I always say to my dubious and concerned children. "St. Nicholas is a Saint." Slowly they've learned to swallow their questions and just put their shoes out on the evening of December 5th and then three weeks later, hang their stockings on December 24th. When they come back to report that St. Nicholas did not visit their friends, I ask whether or not their friends put their shoes out. "No? Well, then there was nowhere to put the chocolate and orange and so he had to just leave."

Those are the basics of a St. Nicholas Visitation at my house. An orange, some chocolates consisting mainly of gold coins and, when I can find a nice one, a chocolate "Saint Nicholas" (so what if it looks exactly like a Santa), and a small special item that fits in the shoe--a pocket knife for a little boy, perhaps, or a silver spoon for a young girl, or a little tiny doll for a little little girl. When I am in my right mind, I think and plan and scour the Internet for little treasures. When I am knocked back by life, I run out between December 4th and 5th rushing through the aisles of crowded box stores, looking for something, anything, small and wonderful. 

And then there's the Visitation of St. Nicholas to the church. He comes whatever Sunday is closest to the 6th, unannounced, banging on the sacristy door with his Shepherd's Staff, glorious in cope and miter, bearing a basket of oranges (but really clementines, which are dainty and perfect for little reaching hands) and gold coins. He is always well timed, right during the end of the announcements. The Announcement Giver, hearing the loud knock at the door, stops and says, "I wonder who that is?" and goes to the door and opens it and there he is! The children gasp and wonder. St. Nicholas is usually someone they haven't seen very often--not any of their fathers or Sunday school teachers, but a man, as tall and thin as possible, hopefully with a small well trimmed beard.  He comes in and announces his greeting "In the Name of the Lord Jesus, whom I served so long as a bishop, fighting off the wicked heresies of Arius, even with my own fists. Are there any children here?" he asks, "who would like a piece of chocolate?" And the children come rushing forward.

Over the last many years, as I've embraced a life of a sort of average American, teetering between the quiet anticipatory joy of Advent and the craziness of the Christmas rush that demands and requires the management of so many expectations, desires, and sheer brutish work, the Feast of St. Nicholas continues to be a brief moment of private, quiet celebratory joy. It stands out and apart from the craziness. It is unexpected and satisfying in the delight it produces. For me, it unites that past and the present, in a schmaltzy liturgical glory, and some years I even make pancakes.

Ready to Think About Santa Yet?

Ok, so there are 2 weird things about this post right off the bat:

1.  I’m referring to a Christmas character and it’s only October for crying out loud

2.   I’m talking about Santa – and this blog is supposed to be about the CHURCH calendar

Now here are the 2 reasons for why I’m being so weird:

1. In order to alter our thinking, and possibly traditions, about this key figure, we might need to start planning early

2. Santa, like it or not, is part of our culture and we need to figure out what we’re going to do with him in our families!

There are probably at least 3 options for how families can deal with Santa Claus:

(I’ll switch to letters now since the numbers are getting a little old)

A.      They can try to completely ignore him, focusing only on Jesus and the true Christmas story

B.      They can go along with the normal culture, embracing the jolly ol’ fellow, encouraging all the mall visits and naughty-and-nice lists

-or-

C.   They can proactively find a way to incorporate the legend of Santa into their family life, while clearly delineating his fictional aspects from the factual truths of Jesus.

Perhaps you can see where I am going with this.  :)

Years ago, when we first read Martha Zimmerman’s book about celebrating the Christian year (see sidebar for details), we were introduced to the concept of celebrating St. Nicholas Day.  I would venture to say that this has become one of our most favorite family traditions of all.  Not only does it cleanly and happily take care of the Santa/Jesus delineation, but it also has given us a whole new party day!

Our kids love St. Nicholas Day because it involves 4 things:  all things Santa, a party with friends, secretive giving missions, and STOCKINGS.  And truthfully, one of the things we love about giving stockings on St. Nicholas Day is that it spreads out the gift-giving a little bit.  The kids can really enjoy the things in their stockings, as opposed to them just being the “warm-up” to the real deal on Christmas morning.

(In our house we give stockings on St. Nicholas Day, a couple gifts on Christmas morning, and one more on Epiphany…. so it’s a full month of gifts all spread out.)

But the real best part for us is that on December 7, after St. Nick has been fully celebrated and honored, we put away all things to do with Santa, and the rest of the season is now freed up to focus on the true star, Jesus.  There seems to be a lot less confusion that way.

So, I write this now, to put a little niggle in your brain in case you, too, would like to celebrate Santa in this way.  As it turns out the man behind the legend, St. Nicholas, was quite a fascinating man and definitely worthy of emulation in some ways.  Perhaps this is the year you’d like to celebrate the true story as a family.

I know switching the giving-of-the-stockings date can throw people off, so put it on your calendars now- December 6 is St. Nicholas Day.  In the next couple of weeks I’ll post a little more detail about who St. Nicholas was, as well as some suggestions for how to specifically celebrate the day.

In the meantime, start gathering those stocking stuffers!