Tonight is the eve of Nikolaus. That's Santa Claus, German version (or maybe even European version, methinks Nikolaus is celebrated in quite a few countries in Europe on the 6th December). I think I mentioned before that November/December is a rather busy time for our two cultured home - still, there's no excuse to forget about this rather important fella.
In Germany, children clean their boot and put it out on their doorsteps on the even of 6th December, so that Nikolaus will fill it with goodies. The goodies are nuts and potentially small presents, and yes, there is a definite parallel to the Christmas stocking. The boot in my days was a red plastic one which was only ever used for this purpose, but for want of the Nikolaus boot, we resorted to a pink
wellie, which is considerably smaller. The children have to clean their boot because otherwise Nikolaus won't leave anything in it. Oh, and only good children will get their boot filled, naughty one's get the stick from Knecht Ruprecht, the nemesis of Santa.
So I remembered just in time to tell Cubling that she needed to clean her boot. She was a bit concerned that Nikolaus would come to see her but once assured that he's too busy to actually come into the house, she rushed off to enthusiastically clean her boot. Must remember that trick to get her to clean various other things in the house. Then there's the question if you can trust the neighbours not to steal the filled boot. Then I rushed off to our not so local supermarket to get boot fillers, which was quite an undertaking (feed Snowflake, scrape car, fling Snowflake in snowsuit and car seat, drive, shop, return, just in time for the next feed and bedtime stories, read stories while feeding, reassure there are no monsters or dinosaurs in the house, thank husband for having managed to get Cubling bed ready without tears, get stuff from car, fill boot, put boot back outside, thank heavens Cubling didn't wake during this time, collapse on sofa and be thankful for lucky escape from yet another mummy fail).
All sorted. And on Saturday, she'll meet Nikolaus in person at the Kinderclub; the German playgroup.
It never ceases to amaze me how busy we are these weeks of the year. There really wasn't time for 2 weeks in hospital. Just as well Cubling is too young to notice how improvised things are.
Can't wait to see her face in the morning though!
Mummy do that!
