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Anyone else putting shoes out tonight for St. Nicholas?


erose630

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I'm a catholic of german decent and this was somthing we always did growing up...wondering if anyone else will be putting their shoes out tonight :)

 

"Traditional celebrations of Saint Nicholas Day in Northern Europe included gifts left in children's shoes (the origin of our American Christmas stockings). Good children receive treats - candies, cookies, apples and nuts, while naughty children receive switches or lumps of coal. Sometimes coins were left in the shoes, reminiscent of the the life-saving doweries the saint provided. Today - especially in families of German extraction - children still put a shoe outside their bedroom doors on the eve of Saint Nicholas Day, and expect to find candy and coins or small gifts in their shoe on December 6th."

 

 

 

http://www.wf-f.org/st.nicholas.html

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Thanks for the reminder! St. Nick never came when I was growing up even though I am also Catholic of German decent. We've done stockings but last year they somehow got miss placed so we did Dad's heavy wool socks. This year I mentioned to the girls that I still haven't found the stockings and one daughter said that's okay we will put out our shoes but my middle one said " No, lets do boots they hold more." So, I guess this year it will be boots!
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Oops, we were a day early! I knew it had something to do with the 5th, just got the wrong end of the day. No wonder my daughter didn't hear about it at school today. St. Nick is new to me. I never heard of this one until I moved to this city, so I just played ignorant when the kids found their stockings ("Gee, where did that come from?"). We'll let the kids at school straighten DD out, since I'm not exactly sure how the story goes 'round here.
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I also grew up Catholic, but of Roman decent. We never did St. Nick, but where I live now is very dominantly German Catholic, so just about everyone does it. I decided to start this tradition with my DS3 this year. We wrote our letter to Santa, put it in his stocking and Santa left him a little gift. He really enjoyed it. We will be making this a tradition in our house.
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