Waiting for St. Nick . . .

My family has always celebrated St. Nick's Day (Dec. 5) and we hang our stockings and await them to be filled by St. Nick over night. When I met Travis, he thought my family made up the tradition because he didn't know anyone else who celebrated it . . .

Here are our empty stockings, waiting to be filled by St. Nick. . . .

Now that I am teaching 3rd grade, we are doing a unit called "Christmas Around the World" where we learn about the Christmas traditions in various countries. Come to find out that this is a Dutch tradition . . . Am I Dutch???? Nope. Also, you're supposed to put your shoes out - stockings are from England! Good ol' Americans, morphing the traditions of 2 separate countries into one holiday. To be fair, I think this day is also celebrated in Germany and my family is German, so that's probably where it came from . . .

Anyway . . . . My 3rd graders expectantly put out homemade wooden shoes (made from empty milk cartons, of course!) and wrote a letter to Sinterklaas (or St. Nick) hoping he would stop by. Let's hope he finds his way from Holland to our classroom or I will have 17 very disappointed 8 year olds to deal with in the morning!