St. Nicholas Day

 

Upon his snow white steed

 With wind and lightning speed

St. Nicholas leaves the sky

And comes a riding by.

 

The little hare hops nigh

And lifts his nose up high.

The stag, with pointing horn,

Jumps over bush and thorn.

 

And all the creatures dear

Are drawing quickly near.

Before St. Nicholas bow

Their little heads so low.

 

But we will learn a tune

Of sun and star and moon,

And sing our happy lay,

Sing on St. Nicholas Day.

 

~ Traditional German poem

 

Wishing all who have been visited by the kindness and generosity of St. Nicholas a beautiful and heart~filled day xo

Sinterklaas & Time

 

There are many stories about St. Nicholas and I have many favorites I could share. A resource we have been using here at our home since the start of Advent is the website St. Nicholas Center. It is full of history, stories, games, crafts. We love it and the littles have been so eager to hear a new story or to look at the pictures again and again. What I truly love is that we are creating a new tradition in our home about the modern "Santa Claus" and what I know to be true in my heart. As a family, we have been pulling further and further away from the hysteria of a "traditional, cultural" Christmas. We've never been much into the whole Santa coming down the chimney thing and the purchasing of too many toys that will just end up gathering dust in the corner, ideal. We try very hard to protect our children from the onslaught of what many believe to be a normal celebration of Christmas. I say normal because I know first hand that the way we choose to celebrate (or not celebrate) is viewed by many in my life as abnormal!!  

 

One of the suggestions on the St. Nicholas Center website I love most is this one . The suggestion is to leave just a note behind, not a present or other trinket, just a note. What this note "gives" is the gift of time. Time to just be and spend with your loved one. The note could read:: "What I give to you is 30 minutes of conversation time with your Mama or Papa every night before bed". You can tailor this note to fit whatever model works best for you. The gift of time is much more valuable than any other gift you could give your child or partner, in my opinion. Celebrating St. Nicholas within the Advent season encourages a bit more magic and enchantment to all of our preparations and waiting for Christmas. We can focus on the good, kind and loving deeds of a true Saint which helps to redirect the gift giving energy to this time and opens up our Christmas celebrations to be wrapped more deeply around the celebration of the birth of Christ.

 

Another thought that comes up for me is, what about giving yourself time with just, well......yourself? What does that look and feel like? I'm still trying to figure out what that means for me. I've embarked on A Season of Mindfulness and in doing so I've been trying out what it feels like to really listen within, to slow it down and be present, or not. It's an uphill struggle to sort out all of those grizzly places that have been longing for attention. Most days are better than others but when I'm really digging deeply I've found that there is lots of clean-up to do. Years of neglect and stuffing means shifting and clearing the way won't happen overnight. That may be one of the most frustrating things about self-care and love.......I'm an instant gratification kinda girl, this isn't like needle felting :) Having said that I have had some wonderful break throughs. I know very deeply that I am extremely sensitive and my feelings get hurt easily. I am eagerly working on shifting all of that by being better about communicating (some days are better than others) and realizing that it's OK for me to be my *soul* provider. I've looked to my partner, mostly, to fulfill that role. That's a pretty large role to fill so when things don't happen or work out the way I would expect, my feelings get hurt. I would love to release my adoring husband and myself from all of that.......the beautiful thing about self-care and love is that you feel good about all of it! All that goodness and love comes from and continues to live within you. Imagine how that would fill you up?! Taking the time to do something nice for yourself will fill your vessel more quickly than waiting for someone else to do it!

 

Speaking of needle felting, I carved out some time to work on another St. Nicholas treat for one of my lovies that will go along with our little note (I'm really loving creating handmade treasures for my children this year!).

 

 I cut a 5" round piece of felt and needle felted some polka dots on to it.

 

 

Then I stitched a drawstring through it........

 

 

.......and voila! A felted drawstring pouch! I imagine it would make a lovely little package with a sweet little note from St. Nicholas to leave in my Bella's shoe. Later, she could use the pouch as a travel jewelry pouch. I'm sure she'll think of something.

 

 

What will your St. Nicholas celebration look like this year?

A St. Nicholas Day Treasure

Today I'm joining Nicole at Frontier Dreams for her Keep Calm Craft On series.

 

It's been such a lovely couple of days of getting things ready! The beginning of Advent, preparing for a month's worth of celebrating.  It's been a bit of a struggle to find the quiet, alone time to work on little treats for St. Nicholas to leave in my kiddos shoes but I was able to carve out a bit of time last night when I returned home from school. It was a bit late, and there was still come tidying up that needed to happen before I would allow myself to relax. Once that moment was realized, there was no stopping me!

 

Just a few weeks ago I finally found the courage to teach myself how to knit. It was something I had wanted for a very, very long time. As a child I had requested to learn, but, the timing was never right. As I got older, I was taught to crochet, so I built on those skills, sort of! Anyway, I saw this beautiful knitted story blanket and was so inspired by it that I went out and got a pair of needles and sat up late one night and watched about a dozen Youtube videos until I had it down! It was much easier than I had expected but I believe it came to me easily because I wished it so :) I've been so inspired by following along with various Yarn Alongs but don't quite have the skills to knit a sweater or something bigger or more complicated than a scarf! I've been finding that the back and forth knitting is getting a bit boring, I needed to spice things up a bit. I knew that I had wanted to put together some lovely peg dolls for the littles for St. Nicholas day so I thought (mind you, I truly was just imagining never did it dawn on me that I could make it happen) a knitted, little gnome hat would be a perfect finishing touch.

 

 

I found a very simple pattern, gathered all of my materials, and began! This little gnome came to life very quickly. He told me what colors to chose for his underclothes and coat. Even the blanket stitch. I didn't have to think of anything. Then came the little hat. I closed my eyes and put my hand into my yarn basket, pulled out a ball of yarn and proceeded to cast on.

 

 

This picture is several rows into my little hat; I had begun to decrease my stitches at this point. All of this is so new to me so when I saw that it was actually coming together, (read:: it was actually working) I could hardly contain my joy! And it was too late so no one was awake to share it with!

 

 

Here he is, in all of his splendid glory! I love him, dearly, and I love that when I was helping bring him to form that I immediately knew which little he would belong to. All of that love and energy is encapsulated within him. I just know that he will be deeply loved, a treasure to live among us, through our children's play-filled days. I can't wait to get started on the other little friend who will be joining him!

 

What are you working on?