The Celebration of Saint Nicholas

In Slovene, Saint Nicholas is Sveti Miklavž. December 6th is the celebration of this Saint. I had mentioned it in my earlier blog post and how we celebrate it here. We had the baskets all ready the night before. All the gifts to fill the baskets were ready. I can honestly say that Luka and I were more excited than Olivia was. We seriously could not fall asleep that night because of the anticipation. Obviously, not for ourselves, but for Olivia’s excitement. But for Olivia, this is the first real experience of Sveti Miklavž. We had talked about him and that he will visit us during the night. She had requested a dinosaur book and building blocks with a train. She would say, “Sveti Miklavž is bringing me a dinosaur book.” Still, when the day came she wasn’t really sure what was about to happen.

It would be the only day she actually slept in too. Luka and I sat on the edge of our bed, watching her sleep, waiting for her to wake up. We turned on the hall lights, talked normally, sipped our tea, and she just slept. It was agonizing. Finally she stirred, sat up, asked for her shake, which we already had waiting for her. If she was going to get chocolate then I wanted her to have a healthy breakfast first. When she had finished we said, “Olivia, Sveti Miklavž visited us last night! And he left gifts for us in the kitchen!” Olivia smiled, but we could tell she wasn’t quite sure just what all that meant. We walked slowly with a mix of anticipation and hesitation.

We entered the doorway and when she saw the table with baskets full of gifts she stopped in her tracks. At first she looked puzzled, then she smiled. Then she said quietly, “Sveti Miklavž came.” It was like she could hardly believe what she was seeing. She could hardly believe that that intangible thing we had been talking about had actually come to life. I’ll never forget that face.

She walked slowly to the table and the first thing she grabbed was the deodorant out of Luka’s basket and said, “Ati! Look what Sveti Miklavž brought you!” It was so cute Luka and I both laughed. Then we asked, “What did Sveti Miklavž bring for you?” She started with the things that were on her chair. “Sveti Miklavž brought me clothes! And a Hello Kitty book!” she sat down on the floor and opened her book. Nevermind the basket overflowing with things on the table. It was really quite amazing. I think in movies we see this mania regarding gifts where kids pillage through everything in a frenzy. In reality, she was totally enthralled with one thing at a time. She would spend an hour on that one thing too. Of course, we ignored our baskets totally and gushed over what she was doing. At one point Luka said, “Did you get a brush?!” and she answered, “Sveti Miklavž brought me a brush!” She didn’t once say that she got anything. Everything was given to her by Sveti Miklavž, which I thought was nice. It was nice that she believed that a good person had blessed us with things out of his kindness. Of course her parents and grandparents give her presents! We love her! We give her things all the time. But this! This was a saint whom she had never met. She doesn’t know him, and yet he gave her something so wonderful.

The items that made the biggest hit were her dinosaur book (how did Sveti Miklavž know???) and her tool box. I just love this girl. I love her diversity. She loves just about anything with a motor and then she also loves makeup and babies. I don’t know how everyone else feels about that, and I don’t care, I think she’s cool as can be. She also got some pretty butterfly jewelry, new pajamas, chocolates, and a mini whiteboard, which she said was, “just like the one at Ati’s office!”

We had such a nice morning together. The three of us celebrating the spirit of giving and goodness. If you don’t know the history behind Saint Nicholas I highly recommend reading up on him. He was a Greek man known as Nikolaos of Myra who lived in the 4th century. The way he became known as a gift-giver is beautiful. Both of his parents died when he was young leaving him with a rather large inheritance. He went to live with his uncle and became the Bishop of Myra. There was a man who had become so impoverished that the only way he could survive was to sell his three daughters into prostitution because none of them had a dowry. Upon hearing of this, Saint Nicholas took from his inheritance gold coins, filled a purse, and secretly threw the purse into the man’s home through a window. He did this for each of the three daughters. He also fought diligently on behalf of the poor, prayed for world peace, was imprisoned and tortured, one of the bishops who signed the Nicene Creed, and is the patron saint of children, merchants, the falsely accused, repentant thieves, bakers, and pawnbrokers. You can read more about him here and here.