We celebrated St. Nicholas Day (which was actually on December 6) on Thursday night.
You know how I am....always late.
I first learned about celebrating St. Nicholas Day by reading the comments on this post at Building the Blocks. I wasn't quite sure how to go about celebrating - even after doing a little research online - but I did read somewhere that St. Nicholas Day is a common German celebration, and since both the Mister and I have some German roots, we decided to go the pseudo-German route. We had a pseudo-German dinner of brats and sauerkraut....
and
We also had pierogies, because I thought they were German. Turns out they're Polish. Oh well....they were yummy. :)
(and yes, I'm slightly embarrassed looking at this picture to see how out-of-date my dishes are. you know, I never really notice stuff like that until I see it through someone else's eyes. oh well. they work, and we actually still have an almost-full set. :))Both kids loved the sausage and hated the sauerkraut. Kloe loved the pierogies, but Jacob didn't like them at all (surprise).
After dinner we read The Legend of St. Nicholas - which actually isn't a legend at all - and learned about a boy named Nicholas, whose life became the foundation for our modern Santa Claus. Nicholas's parents died while he was still young. They had been very wealthy, and he inherited a large amount of money from them. A devout Christian, Nicholas used his wealth to assist the needy, the sick, and the suffering...most often doing so anonymously.
So after reading the story and talking about Nicholas, we had our own little family Secret Santa exchange in honor of St. Nicholas.
It was really fun, and the kids were so cute trying to keep their gifts and whose name they had drawn a secret. As soon as Jacob drew a name out of the bowl he looked at Kloe and grinned, then ran off to his room to wrap her present. (we had each bought presents - at Dollar Tree - for everyone else in the family, so we would be prepared no matter whose name we drew.) When he came out of his room, he said, "You're just gonna LOVE what I got you, Sissy, you're just gonna love it!" So much for the "secret" part. :) So cute!
The Mister drew my name, and after wrapping my gift he came out of the bedroom saying, "You're NEVER gonna guess what I got you!"
After the gift exchange we made gingerbread men. I don't know that they are particularly German, but at least one website I found during my brief research said that they are popular St. Nicholas Day treats, and I thought they would be fun.
Well. The day AFTER we had our celebration I found pre-made gingerbread cookie dough, both in a tube and in a tub, but the day we were shopping all I could find was the bagged mix (sorta like brownie mix). You KNEW I wouldn't be making them from scratch. And only AFTER I had already dumped all the ingredients into the bowl....and was wondering why I couldn't get them to mix together....only then did I see the microscopic print at the bottom of the recipe that said "If using spread in place of margarine, be sure it contains more than 65% vegetable oil." Mine? 53%. Great. Apparently it wasn't oily enough. So in an effort to get it to mix a little better, I stuck the bowl in the microwave for about 6 seconds.
Well. It mixed up just fine after that, but now our dough was like goo. So much for using the cookie cutters. We opted for free-form gingerbread men, and shaped them with our hands like play dough.
Well. That didn't work so well. They came out looking like Pillsb*ry dough boys.
They turned out a little puffy....
....and nontraditional....
but they were still pretty cute....
and yummy!
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