Saint Nicholas Day

When Brian and I were together he would usually take vacation at the beginning of December and go someplace warm. Most of the time, I was not able to get away at that time. Since Saint Nicholas Day usually fell during his vacation, I would pick a weekend afternoon and invite my friends to at tree-trimming Saint Nicholas celebration. I began celebrating Saint Nicholas Day in college, when the German Club would celebrate the festival every year. Even though Brian and I are no longer together, I have kept the tradition of putting up the tree and decorating the house on or near Saint Nicholas Day.

In my current apartment I have a small tinsel tree that I put up. Small being the key word when one lives in 450 square feet. For a number of years I would get a small live tree in a pot, which then would often be put out in the yard. Once I started going to Pennsylvania to spend Christmas with my brother, however, I lost a couple of them due to lack of water. The first year I lived in this apartment I had no tree at all but found I missed having one, even though I decorated the apartment. Two collections also vie for space when I decorate. One is various Saint Nicholas and Santa Claus figures, and the other consists of creches, nativity scenes, and nacimientos (really three different terms for the same thing) from around the world. Many of them were given to me by friends, and some of them I collected on my travels. Sometimes it seems like overkill, but I love to look at them and remember who gave them to me, or the trips during which I bought them. My parents gave me my very first nativity set--white ceramic with just Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus--when I was in college.

When my brother and I were little, Honey and Grandad, our maternal grandparents, would give us each an ornament every year. Our boxes would be brought out on Christmas Eve, and before going to bed, we would hang the ornaments around the living room. Christmas morning all of them would be on the tree that Santa set up when he came that night. When we outgrew Santa Claus, we would hang our own ornaments on the tree when the family set it up. For a number of years the family would exchange ornaments on that day. We no longer do, mostly because Mom and I each have more ornaments than we use on any given year. My brother and his wife still give their kids ornaments every year, so each of them, like my brother and me before them, will have ornaments of their own when they set out on their own.

Deciding when to put up the tree always resulted in a "discussion" once Scott and I were old enough and Santa Claus no longer brought the tree. My mother's family tended to put their tree up the day after Thanksgiving; my father's on Christmas Eve. Until my father died, it was rare that the tree was up more than a week before Christmas. When Brian and I were together the discussion was about what color lights. My family always had blue lights; his multi-colored ones. We compromised with white. After we separated, and I lived again with Mom for a few years, we put both blue and white lights on the tree, so some nights we lit the blue ones, some nights the white ones, and some nights both.

When we were kids, no matter when the tree was put up, my parents would pick a weekend in the middle of December to decorate the house. That included baking Christmas cookies. The highlight of that day was unpacking and setting up the creche. The rough wooden stable and ceramic figurines dated to my parents' first Christmas together. Once the stable was set up on its fabric "field," my father would hand my brother and I, in turn, a wrapped figure from the box. We would unwrap it and carry it carefully to Mom, who would place each one in the creche. It was a big deal to us who got the Baby Jesus to unwrap!

It is interesting to look back and see how our Christmas traditions have evolved over the years, with each family doing things a bit differently. But no matter how we celebrate those traditions, we have memories and stories that are shared every year. The traditions and the stories connect us as a family. So tomorrow, after I clean the apartment, I will unpack my Christmas boxes and remember the traditions and stories as I decorate.

Peace,
Jeffri