Fröhlichen St. Nikolaus Tag!

Pete is German.  Have I mentioned this?  His mom was German and his Dad was from Georgia (the state, not the country).  He grew up immersed in German culture and language for the first 20 years of his life.  While he went to school on the military base when he was in high school, he went to German schools through middle school.  He worked hard to lose his German accent and now he regrets it.  People would never know that he is German from hearing him speak.  His hears perk up at the sound of German and his eyes light up when he finds someone to converse with.   Today is St. Nikolaus Day.  You can read more about this tradition here.    I never grew up with this and had no idea about it until Pete started telling me about his tradtions.  So every year since then, he'd had something in his shoes.  I love seeing the look on his face when he wakes up and sees that I've rememberd.   Last weekend we had the nieces & nephew.  Because it was so close to the day, we had St. Nikolaus come to our house Saturday night.  Nico watching the girls with their shoes. The kids put their shoe under the tree because we couldn't have them left outside.  They got a bracelet and some chocolates.    Then we went to the GAI in St. Paul.  The kids got to see St. Nikoluas and got free advent calendars with chocolate.  They love those things!   Pete with Alison and Grant. Alison wanted Pete to help her because she thought that St. Nikolaus would talk to her in German. It was great to see how the kids learned about the German traditions and listened to Pete talk German with the people there.  Grant, Alison and Allie had a great time at the Germanic American Institute learning about German Christmas.  (so did the adults!)