Christmas Traditions {Part 2}

The Christmas season is upon us!  For the next few weeks, Walking Worthy will bring you posts full of Christmas traditions from our very own Southeastern family.  This week, Page Mathias tells us all about celebrating St. Nicholas Day.  Enjoy!

{It was December 6, 1984}—the day before my 13^th birthday.  I was living in the Tyrol region of Austria with my family for the year and enjoying life on a dairy farm.  My engineer father was helping build a plant in the area.  The family who owned our little house had jokingly threatened that if I wasn’t good, St. Nicholas would bring me switches and a bag of coal instead of gifts on his saint day, December 6.  On the morning of the sixth, I woke up to find a special gift at my front door.  Just as they said, there was a giant bundle of apple branches tied up with a bow and a small sack of coal powder.  This was my initiation into celebrating St. Nicholas Day in Austria.

Our neighbors in the little village of Kundl had all kinds of special customs surrounding St. Nicholas Day, including giving small gifts to the kids, a parade, and house-to-house visiting.  It seemed to me that celebrating Nicholas’s saint day let us focus on gift-giving early in the Advent season so that Christmas Day could be all about honoring the Christ Child.  I mentally filed all this away in my middle school brain thinking that maybe one day I would celebrate these traditions with my own family.

{Fast-forward 20 years}—I was married to Greg with a 2 year old daughter living in the Middle East, right in the center of a desert, trying to build relationships with Muslim neighbors and relate our faith to them in a way they would understand.  We realized early on that our friends loved celebrations and were curious about how we celebrated our American holidays.  The ladies I befriended didn’t often show much interest in talking about faith issues, so I was always praying and asking the Holy Spirit to show me ways I could talk about my faith in a natural way.  When Greg and I put these two things together, we found that being really vocal and excited about our Christian celebrations gave us great opportunities to talk about our faith.  We started with having an Advent/Christmas party for all the neighbor ladies and kids.  I was able to use the Advent wreath and the meaning of each candle to tell the story of the need for a Messiah.  The party was a success. 

From then on, we looked for every opportunity to include our friends in our celebrations—Advent, St. Nicholas Day, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost.  Every celebration always involved taking lots of food to our neighbors’ houses.  We added tons of new traditions to our family celebrations, which helped us think about the life of Jesus and the Gospel story in a really meaningful way.  I remember specifically doing some acts of service with our family on St. Nicholas Day while living in the Middle East.  This served as a witness to our neighbors as we explained why we were doing it.  The day was a teaching tool for us as we learned to serve and give like Jesus.

{I did a lot of reading about St. Nicholas during our time overseas.  A great resource is this website, which has anything you could possibly want to know about the life of Nicholas.  The website also includes crafts and recipes.}

Legends abound about the kind and generous bishop who lived in the 300s in Myra, which is present day Turkey.  Most of the legends are about him giving to the poor, the needy, and the suffering as an act of obedience to the Lord.  We love talking about his kind and merciful heart with our 4 girls.

As soon as Thanksgiving passes, our girls start talking about St. Nicholas Day.  They each leave a shoe out on the night of December 5^th, and when they wake up, they know they will find chocolate coins, St. Nicholas chocolates, and whatever else the Aldi candy aisle is offering that week.  We always have breakfast by candlelight and enjoy cinnamon rolls and bacon.  {Don’t worry; I do not make the cinnamon rolls from scratch. J}  

We always talk about how St. Nicholas was a real man who was a Christ-follower who dedicated his life to caring for those in need.  Some years {when I get things together} we do a secret act of service for someone in our neighborhood and encourage the girls to do something kind for one another.  

I find that simple things done consistently year after year can really make an impression on kids {and their parents}.  This year I read about the idea of encouraging your kids to clean out the toys they no longer play with and donating them along with a new toy or two to a family in need on December 6.

I encourage you to look into how you might incorporate St. Nicholas Day into your family’s Advent celebration.  You can even jump in a day or two late.  

Happy St. Nicholas Day!     

Page Mathias has been married to Greg Mathias, the Associate Director of International Missions at SEBTS, for 17 years.  They have 4 daughters—Jordan (11), Chloe (8), Caroline (6), and Hadley (4).  She recently completed her MAIS degree after 12 years, so there’s hope for anyone!  She loves to talk with people about how to build relationships and how to share your faith in a natural way.