 Quickly here is the rest of our Feast Day celebration :) Someone commented on our Book Give Away about how I do it all. Here is the proof that I shoot high and don't always hit what I'm aiming for! To see how our morning went view part 1 of our St. Nicholas Feast Day Celebration. The kids woke up to lots of treats, the oldest was up quiet early. He spend the morning retelling the story of how he woke up, when, who was up and what he found. I think he was just a little excited!The youngest had never seen Christmas lights before so she was super excited about those. And the middle little guy wanted to know all of the details about how it go there, who made it and who brought it and how they got in!
 For breakfast we had Bulgarian Rice with Dried Fruit. It was listed under the dessert section at the St. Nicholas Center, you will find the recipe here.It sounded like something we would normally eat and so I thought I would give it a try. The kids were not a big fan... even the Bulgarian princess (despite the picture to the left!). But I think it was mostly the dried cherries, they were kind of tart and over powering. Maybe raisins instead next time! I changed up the recipe, as anyone that knows me will tell you, I can't make a recipe straight. I made it in the pressure cooker so it only took 3 minutes on high pressure and we added a bit of cinnamon and soy milk, and swapped out the sugar for some maple syrup.
 For lunch, since I didn't really have any plans for this I used the St. Nicholas Center's Miter cookie cutter and made Miter Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches and then they had their orange that St. Nicholas left them. It's amazing how excited kids get over a sandwich they usually eat every day when it is in a different shape!
 The afternoon was spent playing games online at the St. Nicholas Center's Kids area. Crafting a St. Nicholas ornament and a stand up St. Nicholas. We also listened to and sang some St. Nicholas songs. The older two played St. Nicholas memory with their Uncle when he stopped by for a visit. What we didn't do! We never got our St. Nicholas Gingerbread cookies made but WE DID read A Bakers Dozen along with all of our other St. Nicholas books. We also didn't get our Miter hats made as I wasn't prepared with a 24' inch square of red paper, we didn't even get the little version done as there was just too much to do. For dinner we ended up having St.Nicolas du Pelem Pork with Mustard & Apples.
I was really trying to go with a Bulgarian theme since we have ties to Bulgaria but I couldn't find any carp around here for the Bulgarian dish, and I couldn't find any decent looking white fish to make a semi-attempt at Baba Slavaka's Palnen. The pork was pretty good, though for our family I think it was a little heavy on the mustard which is easily fixed. It was served with buttered red potatoes and just our regular ol' stand-by green salad. For dessert we just worked on the treats that St. Nicholas brought and drank some Slemp (Dutch children's drink made from milk... non dairy milk in our case) and the adults tried some Bishop's Wine which was like Sangria but warmed up. I think I preferred the child's drink, it just fit the cookies better!Praying that you all had a holy and blessed Feast of St. Nicholas! Now we look forward to the Feast of the Immaculate Conception! Do you have any special traditions on this day? Please share them in the comment section below!!
I had my littlest assistant help me draw names. She picked three the first time so we put them back in without opening them up. The second time she also drew three, so three it is. Good thing I have a spare book! So we have THREE winners :)
And the winners of The Baker's Dozen Giveaway are...
...
...
Lena, Wendy and Colleen
I'll be contacting you to arrange the shipping of your books. My little helper loved the hat that we put the paper's in and spent all evening running around wearing it and beaming. I think she is a rather cute little helper ;) Thank you to everyone who entered the give-a-way! May we all see life as the Baker Vanamsterdam learned to see it... where God has always provided us with an abundance to give!
_Glorious Saint Nicholas, my special patron, from thy throne in glory where thou dost enjoy the presence of God, turn thine eyes in pity upon me and obtain for me from our Lord the graces and helps that I need in my spiritual and temporal necessities.
Be mindful, likewise, O glorious and saintly Bishop, of our Sovereign Pontiff, of Holy Church, and of all Christian people. Bring back to the right way of salvation all those who are living steeped in sin and blinded by the darkness of ignorance, error and heresy. Comfort the afflicted, provide for the needy, strengthen the fearful, defend the oppressed, give health to the infirm; cause all men to experience the effects of thy powerful intercession with the supreme Giver of every good and perfect gift. Amen.
Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be.
V. Pray for us, O blessed Nicholas
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ
Let Us Pray
O God, who hast glorified blessed Nicholas, Thine illustrious Confessor and Bishop, by means of countless signs and wonders, and who dost not cease daily so to glorify him; grant, we beseech Thee, that we, being assisted by his merits and prayers, may be delivered from the fires of hell and from all dangers. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
-300 days indulgence Happy Saint Nicholas Day from Sanctus Simplicitus!
Just a quick e-blog card to our readers! I'll post more about our day later =) ~Don't forget to enter our blog give away for a free copy of The Baker's Dozen~ St. Nicholas Adding and Multiplying File Folder Games are free here!~Visit our St. Nicholas Page for feast day fun!And enjoy the video below of a wonderful Bulgarian St. Nicholas Day Chant.
 Happy Eve of St. Nicholas!!! He is coming a bit early to Sanctus Simplicitus in anticipation of our busy day tomorrow. We are giving away two copies of The Baker's Dozen in honor of such a wonderful Saint's feast day! This wonderful book teaches us how our hearts should be full of love just as Christ's is and how St. Nicholas' was.A bit about the book from Amazon:"Van Amsterdam the baker was well known for his honesty as well as for his fine Saint Nicholas cookies. He always gave his customers exactly what they paid for -- not more and not less. So, he was not about to give in when a mysterious old woman comes to him on Saint Nicholas Day and insists that a dozen is thirteen! The woman's curse puts an end to the baker's business, and he believes it would take Saint Nicholas to help him. But if he receives that help, will it be exactly what he imagined? Find out in this inspiring legend from Dutch colonial New York about the birth of an honored American custom." We will be reading this tomorrow along with making St. Nicholas cookies using our St. Nicholas cookie cutter from the St. Nicholas Center. To enter the drawing.... simply leave us a comment on this post. Make sure to include your name and tomorrow evening I will have one of our little helpers pick two winners from a drawing. Both copies are a basic paperback version. Drawing entry cut off time is 6 pm PST on 12/6/2011 Please do share with your friends on your blog by linking up, sending an email, sharing on Facebook or Twitter ect. This doesn't get you more entries but it does help spread the story of St. Nicholas and the spirit of giving! The Giveaway is now closed, thank you for those who entered and see who won in this BLOG POST!Here is the true story of such a legendary saint!SAINT NICHOLASArchbishop of Myra in Lycia (†342) Saint Nicholas, the patron Saint of Russia, has won the warmest of praises from other Saints such as Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Peter Damian, who called him the glory of young men, the honor of the elderly, the splendor of priests and the light of Pontiffs. All the world was filled with his praises, Saint Peter added. The universal Church, in the Collect of his office, claims that God made known his nobility by an infinite number of miracles. He was born during the third century, nephew of the Archbishop of Myra. He had lost his parents while still very young, and he desired not to conserve his rich heritage. Gradually he gave away everything of which he could dispose, establishing dowries for poor maidens and seeking out the needy wherever they could be found. The Archbishop, his uncle, already aware of his vocation to sanctity, ordained Saint Nicholas priest and appointed him Abbot of the monastery of Holy Sion near Myra. He undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, resurrecting a sailor who fell from a mast during the voyage; he prayed for the frightened passengers in a near-fatal tempest and calmed it. He visited Saint Anthony of the Desert and healed many sick persons in Alexandria during a stopover in Egypt. On the death of the Archbishop of Myra, he was elected to the vacant see. Immediately after the pontifical Mass, he resurrected an infant who had fallen into a fire. A persecution broke out under the emperor Licinius; Saint Nicholas was banished and kept in chains. He suffered from severe mistreatment but returned to his church when Constantine the Great defeated Licinius, and in 313 then put a definitive end to the persecutions. Saint Nicholas labored in his domains to stop the worship of false gods, still practiced there as elsewhere. With his own hands he cut down a huge tree, site of a sacrilegious cult of the goddess Diana. During a famine his prayers multiplied the provisions of wheat which he had ordered for the port of Myra, to such an extent that what would have sufficed for his people for only a few days, was found to be sufficient for more than two years. He rescued from death, just before they were hanged, three innocents condemned by a judge who had been corrupted by money, reprehended the latter for his crime and sent these liberated ones home, entirely exonerated. Throughout his life he retained the bright and simple manners of his early years; no one could converse with him without finding himself spiritually renewed. Saint Nicholas was the special protector of the innocent and the wronged. He is usually represented at the side of a container in which a cruel butcher had concealed the bodies of three young persons, whom he had killed and was intending to use in his commerce, but who were restored to life by the Saint. This miracle was reported by Saint Bonaventure in a sermon. Saint Nicholas rejoiced when God made known to him that the end of his pilgrimage was near. He retired to his Monastery of Holy Sion, and after a short but intense episode of fever, died in the year 342. He is the patron of schoolchildren, sailors, travelers and pilgrims, prisoners and many others. His relics were translated in 1087 to Bari, Italy, where a church was built in their honor. And there, after fifteen centuries, the manna of Saint Nicholas still flows from his bones and heals all kinds of illnesses. Reflection: Those who would enter heaven must become like little children, whose greatest glory is their innocence. Two duties impose themselves on Christians: first, either to preserve our innocence by sage precautions or regain it by penance; secondly, to love and shield it in others. Sources: Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources, by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894); Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 14. May you have a blessed Feast Day and may St. Nicholas leave you lots of treats tonight during your slumber!
 A friend's beautiful St. Nicholas Day Table This is our first year celebrating St. Nicholas' Feast day, and so it is a truly Keeping It Catholic post! There will be no Santa in this house this year but we are welcoming St. Nicholas on his feast day with lots of fun! Thanks to the St. Nicholas Center there are SO many traditions, crafts, activities and recipes to choose from. Here is what we have planned for our day!The morning will start off with finding what St. Nicholas left for the little kids who were good. I'm not sure if we are using stockings, plates or shoes to put these goodies in yet. Shoes are the main tradition in imitation of St. Nicholas putting the golden coins in the maidens shoes for their dowry. Gold coins, of the chocolate variety are in order along with an orange, some peanuts in the shell, some candy sticks (Peppermint, orange, pomegranate and other flavors) from Trader Joe's and probably some special cookies from Trader Joe's as well. Ideally I would bake some traditional St. Nicholas cookies but I think we will make that the goal for next year. Along with treats we are going to have St. Nicholas day in regards to school, we will still do school but it will all be focused on St. Nicholas.For math we will bake St. Nicholas Gingerbread cookies in the shape of St. Nicholas thanks to our cookie cutter from the St. Nicholas Center (also a great cookie cutter for St. Patrick's day or any bishop!). We will read A Baker's Dozen along with our cookie baking.Also for math we will be doing the Multiplying and Adding Gifts with St. Nicholas File Folder games on our Download Page.Some craft ideas:St. Nicholas Miter Hats to wearSt. Nicholas treat cups- paper craftSt. Nicholas Stick ornamentStand Up St. Nicholas CraftWe love these Saint Nicholas songs here. The Dutch ones are our favorite. For dinner I'm either making a St. Nicholas traditionally dinner of a German Pork Dish or a Bulgarian Fish dish depending on the ingredients I can find. The adults will probably have some Mulled Bishops Wine and a special drink for the kids as well, both St. Nicholas Feast day traditions from around the world (found on the St. Nicholas Center site under recipes). For breakfast we are having a Bulgarian dried Fruit and rice dish that is usually served on this feast day. Extra prayers to St. Nicholas will be added and a Holy Card of the miracle worker Saint included in their treats. What an amazing saint he was! From fasting even when he was a babe all but two days a week to leaving a miraculous oil flowing from his tomb, to calming the sea and saving three girls from a wretched life. We have a couple of real saint stories that we will be reading about St. Nicholas and that will be the focus of our day. St. Nicholas is indeed a special saint in our home as he is the patron saint of Russia (where our two boys are from), the patron saint of children and he was an orphan himself. What a wonderful patron for adopted children from Russia and any Slavic country for that matter. It will be a busy fun day here and we are on count down... only two more days! What are your St. Nicholas traditions, please leave us a comment and share.
 As part of Shower of Roses Advent and Christmas Book link up, here are our current favorite books for the season! A special thank you to my dear friend Julie for introducing us to many of these titles! What are yours? Join the link up by sharing your favorites on your blog or leave us a comment below!
Father and Son The story of the Nativity from St. Joseph's View Lucia Saint of Light Everything about the Feast of St. Lucy! From recipes, to history and tradtions and wonderful pictures! The Legend of the Poinsettia A beautiful story about the Poinsettia and how the smallest gifts are most often the ones that Jesus loves the most. No gift is too small! The Story of the Other Wiseman An old classic written in 1896. The Twelve Days of Christmas Despite the Amazon statement of this being a 'secular' book it was an old poem used when Catholic's were persecuted and has great religious and Catholic meaning to it. A beautifully illustrated book! The Miracle of Saint Nicholas We LOVE LOVE LOVE this book, probably up there as our top favorite. The boy"Alexy," has a special meaning in this house and our boys are also adopted from Russia along with the whole story of the Church being attacked and 'going underground' it is an all around favorite here. A real treasure and a special gift. The Baker's Dozen This is a fun and very teachable book about how to keep the spirit of giving this season a lesson that St. Nicholas often taught. There is always plenty to go around especially when we give in Jesus' name! Want this book for free? We will be giving away a copy... maybe two on the Feast of St. Nicholas! Look for the blog post to come :) Also visit the St. Nicholas center to get your St. Nicholas cookie cutter for his feast in just a few days! The True Story of Saint Nicholas This is by far our favorite story about St.Nicholas, while it is mingled with a little bit of fiction it's a very good presentation of such a Holy Saint to little ones so they understand the real meaning well! We have SO many favorites and these are just a few. Many of these can be found at your local library and they are also listed (along with others) in our Shoppe. May you have a blessed Advent!
 Advent is only a few days away! Enjoy the December issue of the St. Catherine Academy Gazette, its free to download so please do share. A dear friend and her family have put this together as part of the their homeschooling from Catholic imprimatured books. There are also some other new downloads on the Download page. Both a maze and a word find for St. Nicholas' Feast Day and St. Lucy's. I also hope to have one up for Advent in general as well as the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. May God bless your Advent!
 St. Lucy and St. Nicholas word finds have been added to the download page. More are coming so keep checking back! They go well with the 18 color pages of St. Nicholas on the St. Nicholas Center website to make for a little Advent Activity book for kids. Enjoy and Share! Advent only days away!
 _ Advent is less than a week away! We are rushing around here trying to get everything ready from our Advent Wreath to our Advent Calendar along with our hearts and minds. All of November's Keeping it Catholic Monday's have been devoted to celebrating Advent in a Catholic manner. If you missed any of these posts please visit our Keeping It Catholic Posts, St. Nicholas Posts and Advent Posts. God bless!By: Maria Von TrappFrom Around the Year with the Von Trapp FamilyThe events that come to mind when we say "Christmas," "Easter," "Pentecost," are so tremendous that their commemoration cannot be celebrated in a single day each. Weeks are needed. First, weeks of preparation, of becoming attuned in body and soul, and then weeks of celebration. This goes back to an age when people still had time--time to live, time to enjoy. In our own day, we face the puzzling fact that the more time-saving gadgets we invent, the more new buttons to push in order to "save hours of work"--the less time we actually have. We have no more time to read books; we can only afford digests. We have no time to walk a quarter of a mile; we have to hop into a car. We have no time to make things by hand; we buy them ready made in the five-and-ten or in the supermarket. This atmosphere of "hurry up, let's go" does not provide the necessary leisure in which to anticipate and celebrate a feast. But as soon as people stop celebrating they really do not live any more--they are being lived, as it were. The alarming question arises: what is being done with all the time that is constantly being saved? We invent more machines and more gadgets, which will relieve us more and more from the work formerly done by our hands, our feet, our brain, and which will carry us in feverishly increasing speed--where? Perhaps to the moon and other planets, but more probably to our final destruction. Only the Church throws light onto the gloomy prospects of modern man--Holy Mother Church--for she belongs, herself, to a realm that has its past and present in Time, but its future in the World Without End. It was fall when we arrived in the United States. The first weeks passed rapidly, filled with new discoveries every day, and soon we came across a beautiful feast, which we had never celebrated before: Thanksgiving Day, an exclusively American feast. With great enthusiasm we included it in the calendar of our family feasts. Who can describe our astonishment, however, when a few days after our first Thanksgiving Day we heard from a loudspeaker in a large department store the unmistakable melody of "Silent Night"! Upon our excited inquiry, someone said, rather surprised: "What is the matter? Nothing is the matter. Time for Christmas shopping!" It took several Christmas seasons before we understood the connection between Christmas shopping and "Silent Night" and the other carols blaring from loudspeakers in these pre-Christmas weeks. And even now that we do understand, it still disturbs us greatly. These weeks before Christmas, known as the weeks of Advent, are meant to be spent in expectation and waiting. This is the season for Advent songs--those age-old hymns of longing and waiting; "Silent Night" should be sung for the first time on Christmas Eve. We found that hardly anybody knows any Advent songs. And we were startled by something else soon after Christmas, Christmas trees and decorations vanish from the show windows to be replaced by New Year's advertisements. On our concert trips across the country we also saw that the lighted Christmas trees disappear from homes and front yards and no one thinks to sing a carol as late as January 2nd. This was all very strange to us, for we were used to the old-world Christmas, which was altogether different but which we determined to celebrate now in our new country.
 _The Advent Wreath
In the week before the first Sunday in Advent, we began to inquire where we could obtain the various things necessary to make an Advent wreath "A what?" was the invariable answer, accompanied by a blank look. And we learned that nobody seemed to know what an Advent wreath is. (This was fifteen years ago (1940).) For us it was not a question of whether or not we would have an Advent wreath. The wreath was a must. Advent would be unthinkable without it. The question was only how to get it in a country where nobody seemed to know about it. Back in Austria we used to go to a toy shop and buy a large hoop, about three feet in diameter. Then we would tie hay around it, three inches thick, as a foundation; and around this we would make a beautiful wreath of balsam twigs. The whole was about three feet in diameter and ten inches thick.
As we tried the different toy shops in Philadelphia, the sales people only smiled indulgently and made us feel like Rip Van Winkle. "Around the turn of the century" they had sold the last hoop. "Necessity is the mother of invention." Martina, who had made the Advent wreath during our last Advents back home, decided to buy strong wire at a hardware store and braid it into a round hoop. Then she tied old newspaper around it, instead of hay, and went out to look for balsam twigs.
We lived in Germantown, a suburb of Philadelphia. Martina looked at all the evergreens in our friends' gardens, but there was no balsam fir. So she chose the next best and came home with a laundry basket full of twigs from a yew tree. In the hardware store, where she had bought the wire, she also got four tall spikes, which she worked into her newspaper reel as candleholders, and in the five-and-ten next door she bought a few yards of strong red ribbon and four candles. The yew twigs made a somewhat feathery Advent wreath; but, said Martina, "It's round and it's made of evergreen, and that is all that is necessary." And she was right.
An Advent wreath is round as a symbol of God's mercy of which every season of Advent is a new reminder; and it has to be made of evergreens to symbolize God's "everlastingness." This was the only Advent we celebrated at home because the manager who arranged the concerts for us had discovered that our tenth child would soon arrive and had canceled the concerts for the month of December. In the next few years a much smaller Advent wreath would be made by our children and fastened to the ceiling of the big blue bus in which we toured the country.
We always started out by looking for balsam fir, but not until years later, when we were to have our own farm in Vermont, would we have a balsam Advent wreath again. Meanwhile we had to take what we could find in the way of evergreens in Georgia it was holly; in Virginia, boxwood; in Florida, pine. The least desirable of all was spruce, which we used the year we traveled through Wisconsin, because spruce loses its needles quickest. But as long as it was an evergreen.... In order to get ready for the celebration of the beginning of Advent, one more thing has to be added a tall, thick candle, the Advent candle, as a symbol of Him Whom we call "the Light of the World." During these weeks of Advent it will be the only light for the family evening prayer. Its feeble light is the symbol and reminder of mankind's state of spiritual darkness during Advent.
On the first of January a new calendar year begins. On the first Sunday of Advent the new year of the Church begins. Therefore, the Saturday preceding the first Advent Sunday has something of the character of a New Year's Eve. One of the old customs is to choose a patron saint for the new year of the Church. The family meets on Saturday evening, and with the help of the missal and a book called "The Martyrology," which lists thousands of saints as they are celebrated throughout the year, they choose as many new saints as there are members of the household. We always choose them according to a special theme.
One year, for instance, we had all the different Church Fathers; another year we chose only martyrs; then again, only saints of the new world....During the war we chose one saint of every country at war. The newly chosen names are handed over to the calligrapher of the family (first it was Johanna; after she married, Rosemary took over). She writes the names of the saints in gothic lettering on little cards. Then she writes the name of every member of the household on an individual card and hands the two sets over to the mother. Now everything is ready.
In the afternoon of the first Sunday of Advent, around vesper time, the whole family--and this always means "family" in the larger sense of the word, including all the members of the household--meets in the living room. The Advent wreath hangs suspended from the ceiling on four red ribbons; the Advent candle stands in the middle of the table or on a little stand on the side. Solemnly the father lights one candle on the Advent wreath, and, for the first time, the big Advent candle. Then he reads the Gospel of the first Sunday of Advent. After this the special song of Advent is intoned for the first time, the ancient "Ye heavens, dew drop from above, and rain ye clouds the Just One...." It cannot be said often enough that during these weeks before Christmas, songs and hymns of Advent should be sung. No Christmas carols! Consciously we should work toward restoring the true character of waiting and longing to these precious weeks before Christmas. Just before Midnight Mass, on December 24th, is the moment to sing for the first time "Silent Night, Holy Night," for this is the song for this very night. It may be repeated afterwards as many times as we please, but it should not be sung before that holy night. Since we have found that Advent hymns have been largely forgotten, we want to include here the ones we most often sing; and we also want to explain how we collected our songs.
First, there were a certain number, the traditional ones, which were still sung in homes and in church during the weeks of Advent. Then we looked for collections in libraries; we inquired among friends and acquaintances; we wrote to people we had met on our travels in foreign countries. Each song that has come to us in this way is particularly dear to us--a personal friend rather than a chance acquaintance.
After our first gathering around the Advent light, and the singing of the first Advent hymn, an air of expectancy spreads over the family group; now comes the moment when the mother goes around with a bowl in which are the little cards with the names of the new saints. Everybody draws a card and puts it in his missal. This saint will be invoked every morning after morning prayer. Everyone is supposed to look up and study the life story of his new friend, and some time during the coming year he will tell the family all about it. As there are so many of us, we come to know about different saints every year. Sometimes this calls for considerable research on the part of the unfortunate one who has drawn St. Eustachius, for instance, or St. Bibiana. But the custom has become very dear to us, and every year it seems as if the family circle were enlarged by all those new brothers and sisters entering in and becoming known and loved by all.
And then comes another exciting moment. Once more the mother appears with the bowl, which she passes around. This time the pieces of paper contain the names of the members of the family and are neatly rolled up, because the drawing has to be done in great secrecy. The person whose name one has drawn is now in one's special care. From this day until Christmas, one has to do as many little favors for him or her as one can. One has to provide at least one surprise every single day--but without ever being found out. This creates a wonderful atmosphere of joyful suspense, kindness, and thoughtfulness. Perhaps you will find that somebody has made your bed or shined your shoes or has informed you, in a disguised handwriting on a holy card, that "a rosary has been said for you today" or a number of sacrifices have been offered up. This new relationship is called "Christkindl" (Christ Child) in the old country, where children believe that the Christmas tree and the gifts under it are brought down by the Christ Child himself. The beautiful thing about this particular custom is that the relationship is a reciprocal one.
The person whose name I have drawn and who is under my care becomes for me the helpless little Christ Child in the manger; and as I am performing these many little acts of love and consideration for someone in the family I am really doing them for the Infant of Bethlehem, according to the word, "And he that shall receive one such little child in my name, receiveth me." That is why this particular person turns into "my Christkindl." At the same time I am the "Christkindl" also for the one I am caring for because I want to imitate the Holy Child and render all those little services in the same spirit as He did in that small house of Nazareth, when as a child He served His Mother and His foster father with a similar love and devotion. Many times throughout these weeks can be heard such exclamations as, "I have a wonderful Christkindl this year!" or, "Goodness, I forgot to do something for my Christkindl and it is already suppertime!" It is a delightful custom, which creates much of the true Christmas spirit and ought to be spread far and wide.
And there is still one very important thing to do for Advent. According to Austrian custom, every member of the family writes a letter to the Holy Child mentioning his resolutions for the weeks of Advent and listing all his wishes for gifts. This "Christkindl Brief" (letter to the Holy Child) is put on the window sill, from whence the Guardian Angel will take it up to heaven to read it aloud to the Holy Child. To make small children (and older ones, too) aware of the happy expectancy of Advent, there is a special Advent calendar which clever hands can make at home. It might be a house with windows for each day of Advent; every morning the child opens another window, behind which appears a star, an angel, or some other picture appropriate to the season.
On the 23rd, all windows are open, but the big entrance door still is closed. That is opened on Christmas Eve, when it reveals the Holy Child in the manger, or a Christmas tree. All kinds of variations on this theme are possible, such as the Jacob's Ladder shown on our illustration (available in hard copy of her book), which leads step by step to the day of Christ's birth. All such little aids make Christmas more wonderful and "special" to a child, and preparing them adds to our own Christmas joy. {Advent Calendar: Take piece of cardboard; cut out clouds, leaving them attached at one point so that they can fold out. Cut spaces in ladder as on insert so that they can fold down. Take transparent paper same size as cardboard. Paint and draw pictures of stars, angels, toys, etc. on spots behind clouds and ladder steps. For top cloud, put Christmas tree or Christ Child in crib. Paste this on back of calendar. Each day another cloud or ladder step should be opened, until Christmas Eve is reached on top of ladder.}
 _St. Barbara's Day
There is a group of fourteen saints known as the "Fourteen Auxiliary Saints." In Austria they are sometimes pictured together in an old chapel, or over a side altar of a church; each one has an attribute by which he may be recognized--St. George will be shown with a dragon, or St. Blaise with two candles crossed. One of these Auxiliary Saints is St. Barbara, whose feast is celebrated on December 4th. She can be recognized by her tower (in which she was kept prisoner) and the ciborium surmounted by the Sacred Host. St. Barbara is invoked against lightning and sudden death. She is the patron saint of miners and artillery men and she is also invoked by young unmarried girls to pick the right husband for them. On the fourth of December, unmarried members of the household are supposed to go out into the orchard and cut twigs from the cherry trees and put them into water. There is an old belief that whoever's cherry twig blossoms on Christmas Day can expect to get married in the following year. As most of us are always on tour at this time of the year, someone at home will be commissioned to "cut the cherry twigs." These will be put in a vase in a dark corner, each one with a name tag, and on Christmas Day they will be eagerly examined; and even if they are good for nothing else, they provide a nice table decoration for the Christmas dinner.
 _St. Nicholas' Day
Although St. Nicholas is not in the illustrious company of the Fourteen Auxiliary Saints, he has been one of the most popular saints in the East and in the West for many hundreds of years. He is the patron of seafarers and also of scholars, bankers, and--thieves. But most of all, he is the very special saint of children. Devotion to St. Nicholas is found in every European country. In the north, in Scandinavia and in northern Germany, he is known as Santa Claus. I do not know what happened to him on his way from Europe to America. While he is still pictured in the old world as an ascetic-looking bishop with cope, mitre, and crozier, since crossing the ocean he has turned into a fat, jolly, red-nosed, elderly gentleman in a snowsuit and a red cap. From Lapland he has brought his reindeer. Unfortunately, he has changed the date of his appearance. In the old country he comes on the evening before his feast day (the feast of St. Nicholas, on December 6th), accompanied by the "Krampus," an ugly, chain-rattling little devil, who has to deal with the children who have been naughty.
St. Nicholas is much too kind to do the punishing and scolding himself. It all goes back to the days when St. Nicholas was Bishop of Myra, where he once discreetly threw alms in through a window as a dowry for three young girls, who would otherwise have been sold into slavery, according to the custom of the day. For this good deed God rewarded him by giving him permission to walk the streets of earth on the eve of his feast, bringing gifts to all good children. While in some places the children only put their shoes on the window sill on the eve of St. Nicholas' Day and find them filled with candies, cookies, oranges, and dried fruit the next morning (but only the good ones; the bad ones find a switch), in other parts St. Nicholas comes in person.
He always did in our house. On the eve of December 5th the whole family would gather in the living room with great expectancy. By the time the much-expected knock at the door could be heard, one could almost hear the anxious heartbeat of the little ones. The holy bishop, in his pontifical vestments, accompanied by Krampus, would enter the room while everybody stood up reverently. St. Nicholas always carried a thick book in which the Guardian Angels make their entries throughout the year. That's why the saint has such an astonishing knowledge about everybody. He calls each member of the household forward, rewarding the good and admonishing the less good.
The good children will get a package of sweets, whereas Krampus aims at the legs of the children who did not deserve one. After everyone has received his due, the holy bishop addresses a few words of general admonition to the whole family, acting as a precursor to the One Who is to come, drawing their thoughts toward Christmas, asking them to prepare their hearts for the coming of the Holy Child. After giving his blessing, he takes his leave, accompanied reverently by the mother, who opens the door for him. Soon afterwards the father, who, oddly enough, usually misses this august visit, will come home, and he has to hear everything about it from the youngest in the house.
Of course it did not occur to us, even in the first and second years in America, that St. Nicholas' Day should pass without the dear saint's appearing in our family circle. In the old home this beloved bishop's attire was stored away in the attic to be used every year on the evening before his feast, but now we had to work with cardboard and paper for the mitre, a bed sheet for an alb, a golden damask curtain borrowed from friends for a cope, and a broomstick artistically transformed into a bishop's staff. But at the right moment St. Nicholas opened the door. That taught us that it really does not require money, but only imagination and good will, to revive or introduce these lovely old customs. "St. Nicholas smells of Christmas, don't you think, Mother?" one of my little girls said once, meaning that on December 5th the whole house was filled with the same good smell as it would be in the days just before Christmas.
For this day there is a special kind of cookie called "Speculatius". The dough is rolled very thin and then cut in the shape of St. Nicholas, and these little figures are then decorated with icing in different colors and candied fruit. And just as we are sharing with the reader our ancient songs and customs, I believe we should also share those ancient recipes that have come down to us through the centuries. So here is the recipe for "Speculatius" (St. Nicholas). It comes from Holland.
Speculatius
1 cup butter 4 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup lard 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
2 cups brown sugar 1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 cup sour cream 4-1/2 cups sifted flour
1/2 tsp. soda 1/2 cup chopped nuts
Cream the butter, lard, and sugar. Add sour cream alternately with sifted dry ingredients. Stir in nuts. Knead the dough into rolls. Wrap the rolls in waxed paper and chill in the refrigerator overnight. Roll the dough very thin and cut it into shapes. Bake in moderate oven 10 to 15 minutes.
Another family recipe must not be forgotten here. As we are a rather cosmopolitan family, with one branch of English relatives and with my husband's people coming from northern Germany, and sprinkled with cousins from France and Italy and Switzerland, not to mention personal culinary memories of my husband's early years in the Balkans and our own far-flung journeys, we have quite a number of recipes. This one is a venerated old "must"--a real British plum pudding. It has to be started on the first Sunday of Advent, which in England is still known to this day as "Stir-Up Sunday."
There is an old belief that the more you stir a pudding the better it will be, and that each member of the household must come for a good stir. Plum pudding is painstaking to make, and time-consuming, but when it finally appears on the table, aflame with burning brandy, everyone agrees that it was worth the trouble and it wouldn't be Christmas without it.
Plum Pudding
1 lb. suet 1 fresh orange peel
3 cups brown sugar 1/4 lb. candied orange peel
2 cups stale bread crumbs 1/4 lb. candied grapefruit peel
6 eggs 1-1/2 lb. raisins
Juice of ten oranges 1/2 lb. currants 4 cups sifted flour 1/2 lb. citron 1 tsp. ginger 1/4 lb. blanched almonds 1 tsp. salt 2 medium-size raw potatoes 1 tsp. cinnamon 2 medium-size raw apples 1 tsp. nutmeg 2 medium-size raw carrots 1 fresh lemon peel Grind the suet and bread. Moisten with beaten eggs and orange juice. Add sifted dry ingredients. Grind fresh and candied peel with the raw vegetables. Add these to the batter. Stir in raisins, currants, citron, and almonds. If the pudding is dry or lumpy, add fruit juice. Pack in buttered tins and steam. "And steam" is taken literally in our house, even now in the days of the pressure cooker.
It takes a whole day, eight to ten hours, but then the pudding keeps indefinitely, or, rather, it improves with time. As I write this we have just begun the holy season of Advent. Yesterday there was in my mail a somewhat bulky, large envelope and when I picked it up, something rattled.
I found a Christmas card from our good friends the Sisters of Social Service, and a little brown envelope containing seeds (that, of course, explained the rattling). "Christmas wheat," it said. When I read the explanation, I was happy to know that here was a group who wanted to share a folk custom from their old home--the Sisters of Social Service were founded in Hungary--with their friends in America. With the permission of the Sisters, I pass on the story of this lovely custom, feeling sure that many of us will wish to adopt it.
 _The Meaning of Christmas Wheat
It is an ancient Hungarian custom to offer to the Infant in the manger the green sprouts of wheat. Agriculture is the mainstay of the Hungarian nation and wheat is the symbol of sustenance and prosperity for this nation. It is therefore the most suitable gift for the newborn Saviour. But it also has a meaning for everyone. The "new wheat" symbolizes the "new bread" in the natural order and also the "New Bread of Life" in the supernatural order; for it is from wheat that the altar bread is made which becomes the Holy Eucharist, the bread of our souls.
The wheat seeds are planted on the day of St. Lucy, the virgin martyr, December 13th. Kept in a moderately warm room and watered daily, the plant reaches its full growth by Christmas. The little daily care given to it is flavored with the joy of expectation for the approaching Christmas and spreads the spirit of cheerfulness as the tender plant reminds us of our spiritual rebirth through the mysteries of Christmas.
To plant the seeds, take a flower pot four or five inches in height and fill it with plain garden sod. Spread the seeds on the top and press gently, so that the seeds are covered with sod. Do not push them too deep. Watered daily at the manger and paying its simple homage to the newborn Saviour, the plant will last until about January 6th. "O all ye things that spring up in the earth, bless the Lord." (Canticle of the Three Children)
 Advent is full of feast days especially in the first two weeks. I'm making some little Advent packages to send out to our Godchildren and thought I would share these PDF's of Holy Cards that I put together for them. There is a page of St. Nicholas Holy Cards, a page for St. Lucy and a page for the Immaculate Conception. Only 9 days for Advent! May it be a blessed one for you all!
 | advent_feast.holy_day_cards.pdf | | File Size: | 917 kb | | File Type: | pdf |
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