We put our shoes on the windowsill last night, and thankfully my mother-in-law came through with some Christmas socks and candy canes to assist St. Nicholas in filling them. (I’m the opposite of being "on the ball" this year, whatever that is!)
Do you do anything for St. Nick’s feast day, December 6th?
My in-laws were surprised by the tradition, which was new to them, and wondered if I had done it growing up. I hadn’t, but we started it with our oldest when he was three years old and love one more way to celebrate the Church year, instead of the secular year.
It’s a little late to be sharing this recipe for St. Nicholas cookies from last year (pictured above), but you could even make them today if you have time – there aren’t any weird ingredients that you wouldn’t have on hand as long as you make a lot from scratch anyway.
They also certainly don’t have to be relegated to solely St. Nick shapes and would make fun cut-out whole wheat cookies for any occasion, especially one where red and green frosting (I like this frosting recipe) would be appropriate!
Keeping Advent, Advent
In the face of retail Christmas starting around mid-October these days, it’s terribly difficult to keep the season of Advent and not jump right over it into "the holidays."
With moving and a still relatively new baby, I’m not even sure if we’ll be on top of many traditions for either Advent OR Christmas this year, but I’m trying. We 
have our Advent wreath out. We’re reading this book that Paul received from his Godmother years ago, which we LOVE. If I did one thing for Advent with children, it would be this Advent Storybook about the little bear following the star. Every year I can’t believe how well written it is, and my heart goes all soft watching the wonder in my kids’ eyes as they listen.
Here on the blog, you’ll see a lot of guest posts this month, but if you’re looking for a little something to read to keep you in the Advent season, I can refer you back to last year’s series, the Advent Daily Dose.
The full list from 2009, actually, is right here, but then last year I re-ran the old ones and added just a few new, which you could sift through here.
For the kiddos, you might also really enjoy Truth in the Tinsel, which of course 
has already begun, but you still have 3/4 of the activities to do this year. This eBook by Amanda White is just so. well. done. I’m head over heels for her craft ideas, simple Scripture connections for kids, and photos of each process. If your kids are too young for the Jesse Tree, this is what you’ve been looking for.
And last, if you’re looking for a sweet that is, you know, not so smart…try my favorite Christmas cookie recipe ever, the Kifli Cookies my mother has made all my life. 
Hope you’re having a lovely, blessed, and unstressed day!
———————————————
I’d love to see more of you! Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter, get KS for Kindle, or see my Facebook Fan Page.
If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.
Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money. If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.
Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Truth in Tinsel and Amazon, which means I will earn a small commission from any purchases made starting here…which doesn’t cost a cent more for you, so thanks a bunch for supporting KS!
See my full disclosure statement here.
I grew up in southern Germany where St Nicholas Day is a big deal. We loved hearing the stories, the parade, and (of course) the shoes. We don’t have children yet, but being the dorky St Nicholas lover that I am, I still filled my husband’s shoe last night. I like St Nicholas much better than Santa – the tradition really emphasizes the giving part, not the receiving, and kids are encouraged to think of ways they can give as well.
[Reply to this comment]
Beth Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 6:36 pm
Margaret,
Thanks for any more info you can give. I’ve tried looking online but just get the same info that I already have.
We trying to incorporate this tradition to bring a little heritage back (we are Dutch from way, way back and have pretty much lost most of the culture) and trying to put the focus more on Jesus’. Anyway… what do the children do?? Could you be more specific? My kiddos are 5 and 2 right now. I’ve heard about writing poems and stuff, but they’re still a bit young for that!
[Reply to this comment]
Margaret Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 11:06 pm
I believe that the Dutch traditions are a little different than the German ones, but I can tell you what we did. Our town had a parade, where Saint Nicholas rode into town on a white horse. We always read the story of Saint Nicholas – there are several versions, but there was always mention of gold coins being given to the daughters of a poor man. There are songs, which are fun for kids. The one I liked the best is Lasst und Froh, which apparently has an English version here:
http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/lasst-uns-froh/
Actually, the St Nicholas Center has a lot of good information on different celebrations. Apparently there are a lot of songs – see http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/songs/
They also have other resources, including links to stories aimed at different ages.
Of course, the basic is the shoe – a shoe is placed outside the door on the eve of St Nicholas Day (always including something for his horse – a carrot or hay), and he leaves candy and small presents inside. Gold coins in particular, and switches for those who have been naughty.
There aren’t a lot of other specific things that we did to celebrate. I think the most important thing to pass on to your kids about Saint Nicholas is the emphasis on giving. We always talked about how he gave gifts to help out those that were less fortunate, and how we needed to do the same. I remember coming up with a big list of ways we could help other people as a very young child (kindergarten maybe?), then as we got older reaching further and further out into the community. The point is that Saint Nicholas Day should point to helping others, in whatever way you can.
[Reply to this comment]
Beth Reply:
December 7th, 2011 at 7:24 am
Thanks so much for the extra info!
[Reply to this comment]
Advent with a creche. And sweet Mary has an apron hiding a ‘bun in the oven’.
[Reply to this comment]
Yes! He did visit. We are living in Germany right now, and can’t help with joining in on the tradition. We don’t even do Santa Clause, but LOVE Sankt Nikolaus. He visited my daughter’s Relig. Ed. class on Sunday, our house last night and even my daughter’s classroom. I really love the stories/legends/history about him too. We could all learn a little from the kindly Bishop.
[Reply to this comment]
Advent!!
[Reply to this comment]
My MIL is from Detroit, and her family always made butter kifles. still do on occasion. Thanks for posting.
[Reply to this comment]
Our kids put out their shoes for St. Nicholas last night. They leave their letters for Santa and a carrot for the reindeer. St. Nicholas leaves them a letter back telling them how they can grow in Christ more next year and how well they’ve done this year. He also leaves a bag of chocolate gold coins and a candy cane. We won’t put our Christmas decorations up until this weekend. We have an Advent wreath on the table and try to sing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” each night before dinner (if we’re not too hungry!). Our little Mary, Joseph and the donkey are creeping their way along the top of our craft cabinet till they get to the manger. We also have a Jesse Tree and Advent calendar. I just learned about doing all this after about the time my oldest was 3. We also only give 3 gifts per child on Christmas morning, and then give a little gift each day afterwards for the 12 Days of Christmas. They “give up” their last present of the 12 Days for another child on the Giving Tree at church.
[Reply to this comment]
Is this the same as Belle Schnickle? I have no idea if I spelled it correctly? But my husband talked about his family’s tradition around this time of year and they are very German. I had never heard of it before I met him. But they call it bell schnickel.
[Reply to this comment]
Katie, I had never heard of St. Nicholas Day before! How neat to decorate the cookies! We are going through Truth in the Tinsel, and we will be going through Frugal Granola’s A Natural Noel after Christmas–to celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas. In Latin America, they celebrate 3 King’s Day in January (Jan. 6, I think?). Have you ever heard of it? The tradition goes that the 3 wise men will come and put presents in the children’s shoes (or something like that). I need to research it better….it’s neat finding all these celebrations. It takes away from the Christmas consumerism that our culture has made it into.
[Reply to this comment]
Saw your post today on St. Nicholas Day and it made me smile. We have German in our heritage, but we never celebrated this holiday growing up. We do, however, have a tradition of baking goodies for our neighbors and sharing with them near Christmas. It’s always hectic and I thought there must be a better way. This year, a new tradition begins and we baked for the past 3 days and prepared the goodie bags, which also include satsumas (oranges) and candy canes – symbols of St. Nicholas Day. The neighbors were so surprised to see us so early in the Christmas season, but loved it! (Had goodie bags for our mail carrier, hair dresser, and chiropractic office too). Not a traditional way to celebrate, but it is a start and focused on blessing others. We loved it!
[Reply to this comment]
I grew up celebrating St. Nicholas day by leaving our shoes outside our bedroom doors and in the morning they’d be filled with candy. We are of German heritage, but it actually wasn’t a tradition in either of my parents’ families, it was just the “thing” to do in the area we grew up in, with St. Nick coming to school on St. Nicholas day and handing out candy. We don’t have kids, yet, but my husband loves the tradition, and I always do something special for it. This year, though, instead of buying candy, I made cookies, and left them under the tree, since I didn’t really want to put cookies in a shoe!
[Reply to this comment]
Advent… but I don’t have it together enough to do St Nick… only enough to play the organ at church for Advent services.
[Reply to this comment]
It is so nice to read a faith filled real food blog. I don’t read the blog regularly but have bought several of your ebooks and they have been a blessing in my hectic life. And I love your attitude towards food. So often I am put off by reading things written by most TF folks, especially those associated with WAPF, but your blog is a breath of fresh air and very encouraging.
I recently learned while attending a Ukranian Catholic liturgy that in the parts of the Ukraine children only get presents on St Nicholas Day, not on Christmas and maybe again on Epiphany. My husband and I saw this as a real opportunity to reconcile the whole “Santa/St Nick/parents presents thing” and St Nick left a present for each of our girls on our doorstep yesterday morning along with the candy. On Christmas all the presents will be from family and friends.
BTW, I really encourage everyone to visit http://www.stnicholascenter.org/ they have fantastic resources for stories about the dear old Saint, cookie cutters to buy and free crafts! I don’t know what I would have done without it this year. Next year, I plan to use a healthier cookie recipe though
[Reply to this comment]
Katie Reply:
December 18th, 2011 at 3:11 am
Thanks, Mrs. JD! What a great tradition!
Katie
[Reply to this comment]
I didn’t celebrate St Nicks day as a child but I have a close friend who does and Aria also learned about it at school this year, so we took the plunge and bought a few trinkets for the stocking she made at school. I love it. I’ll definitely be researching it more and checking out your past stuff on advent. Up until now, our biggest Christmas tradition is going to the zoo, so it will be nice to find and incorporate new traditions into our Holidays.
[Reply to this comment]
I just had a baby 5 weeks ago, so I am also not “on the ball”… so, no St. Nicholas visit in our house this year – argh! However, we are enjoying lighting our advent wreath every night – both my kids are fascinated by fire
, and we read the daily scripture reading before the kiddos get into the advent calendar.
When do you set up your Christmas tree, Katie? My husband and I typically do it the day after Thanksgiving, which we did this year, but we’re thinking of waiting until closer to Christmas next year – making Advent and the preparation for the coming of Christ more of the focus. Any thoughts?
[Reply to this comment]
Katie Reply:
December 18th, 2011 at 3:08 am
Jennifer,
Congrats on the new little one! Yay!
If my husband wouldn’t toss me out to the curb, I’d love to set up the tree on Dec 24th! Or, put it up earlier and decorate it for Advent (purple and pink or something) and then decor for real on Christmas eve
[Reply to this comment]
Advent’s my favorite season of the liturgical year– I especially love the hymnody. Here’s how much I focus on Advent: when I’ve wanted to put up a Christmas tree, I’ve found most lots have closed down and they are no longer for sale when I think it’s appropriate to finally put one up. (I won’t put it up before Dec. 24; it stays up through Epiphany).
Great looking St. Nicholas cookies!
[Reply to this comment]
What CUTE cookies!! I thought they were the 3 wise men for a second
[Reply to this comment]