Happy St. .Nicholas Day. . .

Nicholas ( a real man!!) was the Bishop of Myra (modern day Turkey) in the early 300's. He was known as the "Wonderworker" and was a secret gift-giver. He also was known to put coins, fruit and nuts in the shoes of those who left them out for him. Does he sound familiar to you???

Aidan has no concept at all of Santa Claus, St. Nicholas, or the Russian derivitive Father Frost. But he will soon find out! Tonight, Leesbug kicks off the Christmas season by having a festival in town: lighting of the Christmas tree, Christmas parade with Santa on the last float, Santa holding court on the Court House lawn. . .next to the lit Nativity! It's truly an awesome event. I am hoping Aidan is able to hold out for it. . .

This past week, Aidan has suffered from a pretty bad sinus infection which also had a resulting cough. So bad, in fact, that we went to the doctor twice and started out on Amoxicillan and are now on Augmentin. Every night he has been awakened by the cough and then I hear. . ."Mama. . .mama. . .mama. .." I get up and go to his room and he immediately reaches up for me and says, "Mama rock." So, I gather one of his blankets (preferably the nice quilt Aunt Glady Mae made him) and head to the rocker. Then I proceed to rock him back to sleep. . .poor little dudely! I can feel his entire little body quake with cough! I don't like it! But, he is getting better and truly does seem to be on the mend. Thanks be to God! IF we take him, he'll have to be very bundled up. . .

So, back to St. Nicholas. . .I've been wanting to get a special Santa plate for Aidan to put out cookies, etc. for Santa on Christmas Eve. I saw one with a a really cute whimsical Santa in the window of a local shop in town. Probably expensive, though. And then we got out our Christmas things and began the process of setting up the tree and decorating the house. And, lo, what do I find??? But, a wonderful gift from my friend Allison that she gave me last year!



It's perfect for what I want to do! Thank you again, Allison!

I'm hoping in a year or two, to start the tradition with Aidan of writing a letter to Santa and putting it in his shoe on the night of December 5th so that he'll wake up on December 6th to the letter being gone and maybe a coin or something left in his shoe. . .

And, thus ends the first week of Advent. . .