St Nicholas visits Marika

Marika was very excited this morning because she had a visit from St Nicholas last night. She cleaned her shoes and left them outside the front door and this morning her shoes were filled with lollies and she got a new drink bottle - what a great tradition! We looked on the internet and found out more about St Nicholas. We think he sounds a lot like Father Christmas.

In Germany, Nikolaus is usually celebrated on a small scale. Many children put a boot called Nikolaus-Stiefel (Nikolaus boot) outside the front door on the night of 5 December. St. Nicholas fills the boot with gifts and sweets overnight, and at the same time checks up on the children to see if they were good, polite and helpful the last year. If they were not, they will have a tree branch (Rute) in their boots instead. Sometimes a disguised Nikolaus also visits the children at school or in their homes and asks them if they have been good (sometimes ostensibly checking his golden book for their record), handing out presents on a per-behavior basis. This has become more lenient in recent decades.