Today is St. Nicholas Day

[rurallib]

Get those shoes out in the foyer!

https://www.jsonline.com/story/life/2023/12/04/when-does-st-nick-come-is-it-a-catholic-thing-story-behind-holiday-tradition-december-6/71799587007/

Apparently St. Nicholas Day in the US is celebrated mostly in the Midwest. Can't say we "celebrated" the day, but we were aware of its existence. Since I went to a Catholic school, we heard a little bit about the guy. Outside the upper midwest most folks barely heard of the guy.

Of course St. Nicholas biggest contribution is having his name twisted into "Santa Claus" a name that is well recognized.

December and early January has lots of little feast days circling Christmas. The following is my own guess on how they ended up coming into being:

December 6 (St. Nicholas) is the earliest sundown of the year. It lasts for a week.

December 13th the sun down slowly gets a little later. That is Santa Lucia or saint (holy) light. Yay! The day is getting longer.

Winter Solstice is the 21st with the shortest amount of daylight. The celebration now comes on the 25th. This is the old Saturnalia. Certainly there is some Norse celebration I can't think of.

Oddly, sunrise continues to happen later in the morning even as the daylight slowly lengthens. The length of day becomes noticeably longer on January 1, so it is once more time for a party! Let's call in New Years. For the Christians it is circumcision day for Jesus. Any excuse for a party!

And finally to come full circle, the sunrise turns the other direction and starts to come up earlier on January 6th fully a month after that earliest sundown on December 6th.

As I count it this is the 12th night and the day is fully coming back with it lengthening on both ends and in total. Maybe time for a little party. This is the day called the Epiphany - when the kings supposedly made it to Bethlehem. Party time!

The Epiphany is a big celebration is some countries. I believe France and Spain are among those.

Just having some fun and getting myself prepped for the season.

[MOMFUDSKI]

1. Yes. Growing up in Milwaukee we would

put our stockings out and St. Nick would fill them with nuts, an orange, chocolate, etc. One year we got coal! It was shiny, hard, licorice-flavored candy. I had a great mom.

[cbabe]

2. Yes. The Midwest. Shoes outside the bedroom door.

Brown sugar candy wrapped in wax paper. So fun. So delicious. Better than Christmas since it was an extra candy surprise.

Homemade brown sugar candy

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/77565/brown-sugar-candy/

[rurallib]

3. brown sugar candy - haven't heard of that for decades

so delicious!

[AllaN01Bear]

5. ohm myyy.

[debm55]

4. At my school we had the students bring an extra shoe to school. When they came in they would have a wrapped candy cane

and a wrapped molasses cookie in their shoe. This is in SW PA