Monday, December 6, 2010

St. Nicholas' Feast Day


Today we celebrated St. Nicholas' feast day. We spent the early evening making lanterns out of milk jugs. We will use these at the Posada that we always attend, but I did think tonight what a great thing they would be to use while going caroling. You just cut the bottoms off the jugs and then put an X in the lid and jam a taper candle inside. The kids hold them by the handle.


Can you tell Tucker was getting into the paint and just about to paint the seat cushion while I took this picture? Thank goodness it was washable. :) Marky did his jug all by himself- with two angels on the back saying "Hark the Herald Angels..." It's funny b/c we were all singing that song as we colored and every time we finished Julia would say "Merry Christmas Charlie Brown". I'm guessing that's in the movie.


Marky's also had a Bethlehem Star and a Manger. You see why I call him "Reverend Marky". Julia wanted a butterfly and flower- and basically I did it all, but she enjoyed mixing the paint in a big pile of black. :)

We finally got the Jesse Tree up and running.

And then after supper I told the kids that it looked like something had been left in the music room. They were beside themselves and came trampling in so excited. (P.S. I know the tradition is to leave your shoes out the night before and have St. Nick fill them, but I didn't want to miss the kids' excitement and they wake up sooo early). :)


Everybody got a new pair of slippers, a book, and chocolate coins. I got this idea from other blogs.


Afterwards, as we were are snuggly in our slippers we finally got to work putting the lights on our tree that we bought on Saturday. :) Sadly, we still need more lights and had to stop- maybe tomorrow we can finally get this done!

Speaking of St. Nicholas (did you know he was a Catholic Bishop and very orthodox and a defender of the Faith?), we saw him the Sunday BEFORE Thanksgiving when we were strolling in the mall for lunch and he saw us a waved us over. I had no choice, it was like the Pied Piper calling my babies- even though we didn't have Christmas clothes on. Julia wouldn't go near him, but after wiping her tears she did agree to stand to the side in order to get a candy cane. Happy St. Nick's Day to you all and to all a good night!

2 comments:

BB said...

Oh, I love every bit of it. I noted that Sissy Bug and Mommy got squishy warm bootie slippers, and Marky and Daddy got similar mocs. Tuck Tuck got some navy booties like he likes! I adored the picture of Sissy with her new slipper booties. Will she take them off tonight?

--Shelley said...

i love the slipper/book/chocolate idea. and your jesse tree looks great. i love the pictures. ours are colored from computer cut-outs. its our first year so we can step it up next year! :)