Poor old St Nicholas missed out again this year. As always happens when 6th December falls on a Sunday, we hear no mention of St Nicholas whose feast day it is today.I always think it's a bit of a shame that we don't make more of St Nicholas as they do in many other European countries. I feel Santa Claus is very much an American invention and Father Christmas, our English equivalent bears little resemblance to St Nicholas.
When we lived in Germany for a while when our children were small (yes, a long time ago!) I always enjoyed seeing the the shops full of Christmas goodies and of course the tradition of children in the family leaving their shoes out for treats from St Nicholas on 6th December is a lovely idea. What I especially liked was that it wasn't 'over the top' - probably a few sweets and a small toy.
The other difference between St Nicholas and Father Christmas is that St Nicholas would be accompanied by 'Knecht Ruprecht' carrying the goodies for the children who'd been good all year. But Knecht Ruprecht also carried a bunch of twigs to punish those children who had not been good! Can you imagine how that would go down here today? Funnily enough, it didn't seem strange to the German families we knew and all the shops would have bundles of treats for St Nicholas' Day with a miniature bunch of twigs attached.
