Saint Nicholas Day is a "holiday" that I remember with great fondness from my own childhood. It signalled that Christmas was near and every Saint Nicholas' Eve that I stayed with my Oma and Opa, my shoes were placed out for a treat - usually a clementine and some chocolate coins (though one year I received lumps of coal!). Admittedly I haven't been the most consistent about celebrating this feast day with my own children, but as I'm joining the Catholic church this year, I'm trying to improve on these things. :-)

For all things Saint Nicholas, the most obvious place to start is the Saint Nicholas Center. There are stories and poems, crafts, and recipes galore. There is also the Saint Nicholas Society, and Family in Feast and Feria has two excellent posts: Celebration Ideas for the Feast of St. Nicholas and Reading Material for the Feast of St. Nicholas. Lastly, I was also inspired by this post from the Orthodox blog, Festal Celebrations' Gallery. In particular, I thought her gift suggestions were very nice.

As for our plans, I had hoped to be making speculaas this year because our local World Market isn't selling them (I'm very sad about that!), but didn't get around to ordering a mold in time. I may still make them using regular cookie cutters, we shall see. The kids will be decorating this humble (but cute!) gingerbread house and we'll have some Stollen for coffee hour, along with St. Nicholas Cocoa and chocolate-covered candy cane stirrers. We'll be reading The Legend of St. Nicholas by Demi and listening to Legends of St. Nicholas by Anonymous 4; there may be a craft of some sort, but I'm still undecided. If nothing else, we'll incorporate some fun, vintage images of St. Nicholas into our Christmas cards this weekend.