Happy St. Nick’s Day dear readers! Now if you didn’t know that today is St. Nick’s Day then you are not German. I don’t care where you were born or who your parents are, if you don’t celebrate the sixth of December by putting your shoes out for the patron saint of children to fill with candy then you are not a true German (the same way people who don’t eat hot dogs are not true Americans).
Now many people think that in German tradition St. Nicholas only brings gifts on Christmas, but that’s not actually true. In traditional German tradition the Christkindl (Christ Child) brings Christmas gifts. While St. Nicholas brings gifts on his feast day (today). he places his gifts in children’s shoes that they put out for him on the night of the 5th (Nathaniel’s is the cowboy boot).
Every year he brings us candy and a brand new Christmas ornament. The ornaments always work together on some theme (this year we got sea animals), and are usually picked out specifically for each family member. 
(They are arranged in order of oldest to youngest; the stripped fish at the top is Dad’s, then the blue seahorse is Mom’s, and the pink dolphin at the end is Veronica’s) This is a great tradition because now I have over twenty cool and unique ornaments.
This year to celebrate the day Anne made traditional German spice cookies
and we packaged them in bags to give to our friends at the parish hall during coffee and doughnuts last Sunday (by the way please comment and let us know how they tasted). Like Nathaniel said, we’re really thematic this year.