St. Nicholas Day 2012

I'm very behind in posting this... still want to eventually post about our apple orchard trip in October and our Thanksgiving, so hopefully that will happen soon.  Blogging has been less of a priority lately, although I do enjoy it and want to remember the things we have done in this "virtual scrapbook."

We made our favorite St. Nicholas cookies, which are a German spice cookie recipe from Maria Von Trapp.  These are so, so yummy!  I made the dough one evening and then the day before St. Nicholas day, we rolled it out and the girls used our bishop cookie cutter from the St. Nicholas Center.  

Cecilia takes her turn...

And now Caroline's turn...

rolling the dough 

They love to use this kid-sized rolling pin from their play kitchen.

After we bake the cookies, I decorate them with royal icing... I can't wait til the girls are old enough to do this part themselves!

We try to do a special breakfast on St. Nicholas day... this year, we had a yummy fig/anise/black tea bread (that had been made and frozen a couple months ago!), scrambled eggs with cheese and spinach, and a rich "German hot chocolate" made with coconut milk - yum!

Here are some of the St. Nicks on parade across the countertop.  As usual, we bagged them up and then secretly delivered them to our neighbors (yes, including the one who reported our chickens!).  We also took some to the church for our priest, our deacon, and our religious ed director and his family.  I made a little label for them, but apparently forgot to take photos of the cookies bagged up/labeled.  The tag said:

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Nicholas was bishop of Myra in the 4th century.  Just as he did things for people in secret, these cookies are left in secret for you!

Here's a link to the document I made of the tags.  The formatting is screwy though; I'm not sure why... maybe I can come back and fix that!

Cecilia enjoys her hot cocoa... they stirred them with candy canes, which are shaped similarly to a bishop's crozier.  St. Nicholas was the bishop of Myra in what is now Turkey.

Caroline actually said her hot cocoa was too rich!

The girls made these St. Nicolas crafts a couple years ago... we pulled them out to decorate.  They are still out on our china cabinet, and tonight I overheard Cecilia making Mary and Joseph from our nativity, who are also currently on the china cabinet on their way to Bethlehem, say, "St. Nicholas - what are you doing here; you weren't even born yet!"  Ha!!!  So true!  She surprises us with her insight sometimes!

The girls left out their shoes and found treats in them, just like Nicholas threw money into the home of a poor family which landed in their shoes/stockings (depending on who you ask! ;).

Apparently all my toddlers will be enraptured with the oranges left in their shoes... Lucy's was a clementine this year, a little citrus fruit for a little girl!  She carried it around the house for awhile.  I later found it in the doll stroller...

In our house, St. Nicholas brings some new Christmas-related books... this year, he left The Story of Holly and Ivy (my older girls love this story), and two we'd never read before, My Christmas Book and The Saint Who Became Santa Claus.  We also found a CD this year by the Anonymous 4 called Legends of St. Nicholas... pretty chanting, and we've been listening in the car throughout Advent!

And of course, the girls found chocolate coins in their shoes!!  I added the St. Nicholas images again from Shower of Roses.  My kids really enjoy this touch; they like to compare the images on their coins.  I think I'm going to use some of the Christmas images for the leftover coins for their Christmas stockings... which reminds me that I really, really need to make time to finish Lucy's stocking soon!!  Must do that before any more blogging... hopefully I will get around to posting about St. Lucy's feast day as well...