Today is St Nicholas Day. I celebrated St Nicholas Day with my kids as they were growing up when a friend told me that he and his wife celebrated St Nicholas’ Day with their children. They were Italian and apparently their family brought the tradition with them from Italy.

When my son was around three, I started the tradition for him. He would wake up to find something in his shoes. When I had my daughter, I continued with her and as we had grandchildren, we used to pop over secretly to leave something on their porches, but since we now live over 1200 miles away, we have to ship their surprises. Their parent’s received the small gifts and they will be out for the kids tomorrow. My husband’s family didn’t celebrate St Nicholas Day so my step daughters didn’t know what it was and I had to explain it to them. I am surprised because one of them has a father-in-law who’s family is still in Italy. I guess it depended on what part of Italy they came from? I don’t know but it was fun to secretly drive over to drop gifts off on the porches. It made us feel like we really were St Nick in a small way.

Today’s prompt is Nutcracker. We have a bunch of these guys. My husband loves them. He sets up a Winter Wonderland every year and we are currently getting the house prepped for it. I’ll post photos when they are done.