Good morning all. Lucy, what a story about getting presents in your boots if you are good, but getting twigs to be spanked with if you were bad. That certainly would instill fear in SOME kids. Especially when being bad as a kid was mostly being active, then some how, things just got broken, misplaced, dirty or whatever. Please believe me, I could have accumulated enough twigs to build a huge bonfire, LOL!

$ :-)!!!!

Eloise lol

Actually I forgot to mention that all that was put into the boots or St. Nikolaus ever brought us and I keep that going. Because I do not belief in giving presents on that day....well all that you should find in there are fruits, nuts a chocolate nikolaus was always there too and some candy.

Lucy

Oh Lucy, we were celebrating St Nicholas the same way !!! I remembered a day before it working so hard to shine the shoes/boots. St Nicholas would not give you anything if the shoes were dirty. The presents were candy, an orange or a banana which were something very, very special to get. In Romania at that time bananas, oranges, mandarins, grapefruits you will find them just before holidays. They were expensive and my parents did not have enough money to buy a lot of them. They had 4 kids to feed . If we were getting 2 ( one from St.Nik and one from Santa) the whole winter we were lucky. I liked banana so much that I never had enough even when I grew up ,worked and afford to buy more. When I came to America my mom told me "Now you can eat as many bananas as you want". I still like them and I eat a banana almost everyday. Not only, few month ago I bought 3 banana trees to try to grow them :))

Now you find all tropical fruits in Romania all year round.

Happy St.Nicholas !!

Pat

Lucy, today, also brings fond memories for me. St Nicholas Day in our stockings we got a special ornament, and small things like hair clips, a new tooth brush, things like that. On the dinning room buffet, we had all sorts of fruit, and nuts scattered around where we had decorated the night before. There would be tangerines, ribbon candy, chocolate covered cherries, and chocolate covered mints. It was always a special day for us.I guess my mom just kept the tradition alive for us, since none of the kids at school knew what St Nicholas Day was. My Moms family, celebrated St Nicholas day, as the day they exchanged gifts. She said Christmas was a day of rest, prayers, visiting family members, and the big Christmas Dinner, there were 13 children in her family. I don't know when they changed, but Santa always came to see us, while we were at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. I am glad she did that for us, it was something special, and I will never forget December 6th. Barbra