I can't seem to find St. Nicholas Day on any calendars. Please help.

-- Ardie/WI (ardie54965@hotmail.com), November 28, 2001

Answers

Ardie,

St. Nicholas Day is on Dec. 6 but we set out our shoes on Dec. 5. Happy Holidays! Charleen

-- Charleen in WNY (harperhill@eznet.net), November 28, 2001.

Thank you!

-- Ardie/WI (ardie54965@hotmail.com), November 28, 2001.

We celebrate St. Nicholas Day-though we don't set out shoes. I make a big pot of St. Nicholas Soup-which is basically a lot of root vegtables-potatos, carrots, turnips cooked then pureed in chicken broth. That "officially" starts the Christmas season for us-we don't put up any decorations or do anything "Christmas-y" until then- otherwise, I feel like we would be like stores that extend thier Christmas to well before Halloween.

-- Kelly (happycat@fakemail.com), November 28, 2001.

When I was a child, St Nicholas would throw handfuls of candy and nuts on the floor in his haste. It was that hard candy all wrapped up.

-- Ardie/WI (ardie54965@hotmail.com), November 28, 2001.

What is St. Nicholas Day?

-- Micheale from SE Kansas (mbfrye@totelcsi.net), November 28, 2001.

We used to do a St. Nicholas thing with the shoes by the fireplace too. I'd almost forgotten that. We got little bags of hard candies in our shoes and it did kinda start the season off for us too. Our tree usually went up shortly thereafter and stayed up until Jan 12th. Boy, now, I wait until the last minute and take it down almost the day after Christmas. I think I'll tell my new hubby about this old family tradition. Kinda feel like going back to the old ways these days. Thanks for the question Ardie. I think I'll email my sibs now and remind them and see what happens. Thanks again.

Iris

-- Iris (WatchingWideEyed@peaceful.com), November 28, 2001.

Micheale-St. Nicholas is the patron Saint of Children- along with sailors,merchants, pawnbrokers, cities and dioceses and even countries. His ledgend is where Father Christmas or Santa Cluas comes from. One ledgend is that he was a rather wealthy man who saved three young girls from a fate that you most certainly wouldn't want your daughters to have ("world oldest profession" as they say) by providing sacks of money as a dowery so they could have honourable marriages. Because of this, and other stories connecting him with children, its customary (more so in Europe, I think) for children to leave thier shoes by the fireplace at night and St. Nicholas would fill them with coins and small treats-much like Santa Claus fills stockings. In the Catholic Calender, his Feast Day is Dec. 6.

-- Kelly (happycat@fakemail.com), November 28, 2001.