St. Nicholas Day or "Belsnickle"

Yesterday, December 6th, was St. Nicholas Day or as we call it in our family "Belsnickle." It is German/Dutch celebration of St. Nicholas' birthday. On the eve of the 5th, children place their shoes on their fireplace hearth (or outside their bedroom door) and in the morning their shoes may be filled with things ranging from chocolates and treats to even a small gift. If they have been naughty, they will of course find coal! For more about it check out the wikipedia page about St. Nicholas.

My Oma (grandmother) is full German so we were brought up with this tradition. The way we always celebrated was to put our Christmas lists in our shoes and put them out by the fireplace on the evening of the 5th. Then Santa would come, pick up the lists and leave some candy and a small gift in the shoes. So on the morning of the 6th we had a nice little surprise! I just love this tradition and will definitely be carrying it on with Jimmy. We are going to do our "Belsnickle" tonight since I honestly forgot to do it on time, but Jimmy is so young it won't matter that we are a couple days late =D I will post some pics tomorrow!