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Who is St Nicholas?
Submitted by stefan on Sat, 06/12/2008 - 9:11pm
The tradition of putting gifts in shoes is still carried out by parents around the world (mostly Europe I think) who get their children to clean their boots and put them next to the entrance door of the house on Dec 5th for St Nicholas. During the night the boots then get "miraculously" filled with chocolate, candy, nuts or fruit. Most parents probably use it to keep their children's behaviour on the straight and narrow (as of course "bad kids" don't get anything from St. Nicholas) and to break up the long wait for Christmas presents. So if you are keen to start some additional traditions in the weeks before Christmas - give this one a go. I'm sure your kids will love it! -Stefan |
Hey Ian - thanks for the
Hey Ian - thanks for the update, I didn't know about this tradition ... sounds scary! :-) Why Spain though? :-)
-Stefan
I think you should go
I think you should go further with the Dutch St Nicholas - Sinterklaas.
He comes to the Netherlands in mid November with his helpers (Swarte Piet), judges the children, hands out sweets and toys to the good, gets Swarter Piet to beat the bad ones with sticks and if they are really bad.... kidnaps them back to Spain in the same bags that brought the sweets and toys to the Netherlands.
It is obviously changing today, but Dutch children of old were a little frightened of the visit by Sint en Piet.
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