Life: Idiotropic

St. Nikolaus Day is on December 6th and is a holiday both here and in the Netherlands. In fact, on the eve of St. Nikolaus Day, Tiara's ballet classes were cancelled due to the holiday festivities. St. Nikolaus looks like what are sold in the U.S. as "old world Santas." He has a long staff with the beautiful long red robes and tall papal style hat. He is a saint, of course, and is dressed for the part. There are lot of stories about St. Nikolaus. One says that a man was too poor to pay for his daughters to marry, so he was going to sell them into slavery, but on each night before he was about to sell his daughter, St. Nikolaus put a bag of gold in through the window, so that the girls could each marry. Another story is that St. Nikolaus had stopped for lunch in a small village, but the flavor of the meat was not right. He went into the kitchen to see what was happening and saw that they were cooking children, so he put a stop to that. It is said that St. Nikolaus was very good and so when it was time for him to die, he was granted one wish. His wish was that he could return to earth one day each year to do something nice for the kids, so on December 5th, each year, children set out their shoes before they go to bed and St. Nikolaus comes by to fill them with goodies.

Our girls each set out shoes at home and sure enough, St. Nikolaus (i.e. Santa, Easter Bunny, tooth fairy) filled them with pens, games and treats. Poor Tiara. Kirk got the little girls up a little early, so they would have time to inspect their loot before school. They bounded downstairs excited to see what St. Nikolaus brought and then, they all ran upstairs shouting to Tiara, who has long outgrown these things, that she needed to some down right away. "St. Nikolaus was here, Tiara! Come look!"

St. Nikolaus also stopped at the schools. Luci came home with a bag with nuts, a clementine, and a couple chocolates. In Host Nation class, Tiara made a stocking and Arianna made a paper bag shoe. Both came home on Wednesday with their shoe and stocking filled with candies that they shared with their sisters.

Kids get spoiled here. It seems there is no end to special children's days and they give out candy all the time. Tante Tinny gives lollies to the girls each time she sees them, but she says it's grape sugar and is healthy. There is no arguing with Tinny.