St Nicholas or St Nickolaos day is the 6th of December and many around the world celebrate this in conjunction with Christmas. I have some Germanic or Northern European ancestors in the family so I was brought up with St Nicholas and Zwarte Piet. While it is not a politically correct story I do like the idea of leaving sticks for the beating of bad children. We used to get given a bag of gold chocolate coins if we were good on this day. We could of got the tradition from the Scottish part of the family as there is an association with St Nicholas on the North East coast due to the fishing industry.
Now living in Liverpool I am surprised about the lack of recognition that they make for their patron saint, yeap he is the patron saint for the city. St Nick is the patron of sailors and with Liverpool's history as a maritime town you think there would be more of a hoopla.
So today we will be having ginger biscuits with our coffee and I will sending a little prayer his way cause I certainly need it. St Nick is also the patron of students and this student most certainly needs some divine help with the amount of writing she has to do in the next week or so. I also need his help with getting some of the Christmas stuff done. Knitting wise I am so behind it is just not funny so I just dont want some sticks for a beating from Zwarte Piet rather some extra help with everything I need to get done this week. I need St Nick the wonderworker badly. I hope you all get gifts you want rather than piece of coal and swatch of sticks.
Prayers to St Nicholas for you then.
ReplyDeleteYou know the advice, Kotaatok ... head down, bum up. You'll get it done!
Carmel
I did 45K (2 Chapters) the other week for PhD. I have been up two hours and baked ginger bickies. While they were cooking and since I have done some essay editing. You know the whole criticality bit. I am just reading some work for further editing with fresh gingernut style biscuits, hot coffee and doona (it is -2c) and it is not even 7am.
ReplyDeletewould love to have been there to share the ginger biscuits and coffee or maybe gluwhein. Ginger spice biscuits have been part of our lives in New Zealand as my family is Danish and of course in the Netherlands they were everywhere after Sinterklaas arrived. The bought ones are no where near as good as the home made. Good on you for making yours.
ReplyDeleteyou will get what must be done done, write IOU's for the knits and enjoy the lead up to Christmas