Visit from Saint Nikolaus and Jack Frost

Happy Saint Nikolaus Day!

Many Waldorf families choose to celebrate the traditional Waldorf "saint" holidays. We decided to embrace that as well this year. The stories are powerful and the saints, Saint Nikolaus included, are figures to look up to, for children and adults alike. We've been talking about him all week.

Last night during dinner, I told a Saint Nikolaus story, in brief, to prepare the children. After dinner, we sat out milk and a muffin for Saint Nikolaus, and THREE huge carrots for his horse. The children sat our their boots in an orderly row, while I retold the story, longer and with a few more details.

~ last minute arranging ~

~Saint Nikolaus has arrived with treats! ~

" Saint Nikolaus" brought the girls a pretty ribbon, a knitted Santa gnome and some yogurt pretzels and chocolate covered peanuts. I told the story again, with more details than before.

~ midnight oil knitted gnome take a backseat, eh, boot, to food treats ~

~ what happens when sugar is the first thing on your stomach in the morning ~



~ frosty Santa gnome (thanks for the wool Apple!) ~

I struggled with this holiday quite a bit, since we don't "do" Santa Claus. Was it a double standard? In the end, I told the children that Saint Nikolaus became Santa Claus (true) and that the spirit of Saint Nikolaus is celebrated today as well as Christmas Eve. Though they knew Saint Nikolaus and his horse were not actually coming into the house, the magic and surprise was not diminished this morning. And we can continue to honor Saint Nikolaus Day with our own generosity and love.

However, we did feel quite certain that Saint Nikolaus himself had given us a gift - in the form of Jack Frost.

~ white clover ~

Bundled up to keep in that physical and spiritual warmth, we all ventured outside in the cold, clear morning to dance through the hard frost. This is pretty much the closest thing to snow that we can hope for here in the southern United States.

I couldn't stop taking pictures of the beautiful Japanese maple leaves. The trees, which were hanging onto many of the crimson, feathery leaves, dropped them all as the Sun shooed away little Jack Frost.

~ Japanese maple leaf ~

For more about warmth, please look at a favorite blog of mine, Healing Hillary. Her most recent post was very inspirational to me, as we have struggled here with winter dress. I left a HUGE comment, even mentioning the fact that I didn't own any shoes but sandals.

However, a bit later, as the words sunk in, I realized that yes, I *DO* have other shoes. I promptly went upstairs, pulled on my favorite wool socks and put on my hiking boots. They haven't been worn in years, since before the children we born. They felt quite uncomfortable at first, when compared to the Chacos and Keens I normally wear. But I acclimated and I wonder now if my friends at co-op tomorrow will notice. ;)

Hillary, I'm still wearing the socks!

Peace and Happy Saint Nikolaus Day!

Carrie