Celebrating Advent: St. Nicholas Day

I realize I'm a few days late in posting this, but I figured I'd share some pictures of the little things we did to celebrate St. Nicholas day.

Early last week I gathered up some scraps of red construction paper and made a bishop's miter for each of our chocolate Santas.  I then took gold pipe cleaners and fashioned them into croziers.  After a few minutes I had three chocolate St. Nicholases on my hands.  Another blogger mentioned that she used candy canes for a crozier.  I think I'll be stealing that idea for next year.  Anything that keeps me from having to dig through my craft supplies looking for pipe cleaners is a good thing.

On Wednesday night after Ellie's school Christmas concert, I realized after the kids went to bed that I forgot to tell them to leave their shoes out for St. Nicholas.  So I very clumsily quietly crept into their rooms to retrieve their shoes.  How I managed to not wake Ellie and our super light sleeper Katie is beyond me. I had the hardest time finding a pair of matching shoes in Ellie's closet and I thought I was toast when I had the genius idea to use the light up Mickey ears that she had gotten when we were in Disney World.  I was unaware that they were crazy strobe light mouse ears.  Aaah! Madeline, of course, was awake. When I snuck into her room she wanted to know what I was doing.  I did the mom thing and asked her why she wasn't sleeping and left the room with her school shoes.  Well played, Mom, well played.

So after I went through the shoe rounding up fiasco that felt like it took about an hour but was probably more like 90 seconds, I rounded up the bags of chocolate coins and Santas turned St. Nicholases and set them up next to the dog's bed.  I figured it made the most sense to put the shoes next to the fire place, but I don't think the dog appreciated that I put three pairs of shoes filled with chocolately goodness right next to him.  I have to give him props.  He's got a lot more self-control than some of the kids.  He may have looked longingly at the candy but he didn't even hazard to sniff it.

The kids were pretty excited when they woke up on St. Nicholas day to find shoes filled with candy.  I didn't have any time to snap pictures of the kids with the candy.  Katie made a beeline to her shoes as soon as she walked into the family room.  Ellie wanted to eat chocolate for breakfast, but I didn't think her teacher would appreciate a sugared up kid so I told her she'd have to wait until after school.  She decapitated her St. Nicholas as soon as she got home.  Isn't she darling?

After school Madeline read The Secret of St. Nicholasto her little sisters.  It's a nice story book with beautiful illustrations.  I think it made a great addition to our celebration of this generous saint.