St. Nicholas

Yesterday was St.Nicholas day. Such a happy day filled with wonderful memories from my childhood. I remember how excited I used to get, to put my boots out the front door and wait for St.Nicholas to fill them. I was lucky and he not only stopped at our house but also at my grandmothers ajacent apartment downstairs 🙂 I often got up super early, to take a peak before school to see what he had left. Most times St.Nicholas would bring a lot of Christmas candy together with the more traditional things like nuts and fruit. My favorites were the Christmas cookies, marzipan balls, and a chocolate Santa. Often I also received my special Christmas outfit for the year ( big festivities on the 24th of December ) , or other clothes that was maybe a little more special. Most times you would get something rather small though and not really toys, maybe a CD or a book as I was getting older.
When I was real little we lived in a very small town and there it was common that St.Nicholas would actually come to your house, read from his book and choose a gift for you. The traditional St.Nicholas looks more like the bishop and well he often also takes Krampus along. I admit it, I was a bit scared as a child, seeing those two walking through the streets. If you are curious about more of the traditions I found some cute links that explains it all a bit more.

This next video explains another story of St.Nicholas ( the corn legend) played with our favorite PLAYMOBIL toys. It is however also in German. But if you read the story here http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/who-is-st-nicholas/ you might be able to understand it and explain to the kids as you watch it.

Christmas songs are super popular and in the schools, kids often learn old and new songs. An old time favorite is of course ” Lasst uns froh und munter sein ” the #1 song for Nikolaus Tag ! Come sing along !

But back to our morning of Dec. 6th now. We were all a little surprised that St.Nicholas had chosen sleds for the girls this year, I guess with this big move and the possibility of having snow more often, was reason enough ;). Of course it has not snowed yet, and the girls are asking about every other hour when it will snow, lol. I really hope it will, as I love snow just as much or more as they do, but even if it won’t in our valley, the mountains are just a short drive away and they are pretty well covered with snow already.

We had no idea that the sleds were such a good product, but they have actually existed for along time in Austria and Germany and are super duper popular there. My family from Bavaria was quick to tell us 😉
So here is hoping that we will get some snow very soon !

If you are curious about our fun sleds here is a link ! I hope I get to post some of our own action pictures with them soon !!