The Anti-St. Nicholas

No theological significance to this post, just family life in all it's craziness.

The kids found "money candy" from St. Nicholas in their shoes yesterday morning.  Other St. Nicholas Day traditions in our house include giving away as many toys as the kids are old (that's 19 toys combined!), and reading about the dear bishop.

Ours were deutchmarks, from Aldis

There was some drama about how many silver and gold coins each received; some ate some before breakfast; some ended up with more than others once the candy migrated downstairs.  We had to leave at 8am to make it to Sunday School Christmas program practice, so instead of figuring out who got how many, I said, "We'll figure it out when we get home!"

Later husband went with his dad and brother to see Interstellar.  We came home to this all over the table.

"DAD!"

Stage 2: anger

Stage 5: emo acceptance

My second-born was HORRIFIED, and made some of these faces and cried and screamed a lot.

Stage 4: depression

Upon further investigation, it was discovered that, although each foil was carefully peeled, not every crumb of chocolate was eaten, and there were claw marks (!) on some of the wrappers.

We have a Christmas dog we got in December 2012.  He is, as my husband says, the gift that keeps on costing.  He is very handsome, but very clever (or stupid....perhaps dumb like a fox?), and usually does one round of damage while we're gone (trash, if we forget to take it out before we leave, stuffed animal, pillow, bag of flour.  He can open doors, cupboards, gates, screens...).  We forgot to read this description of the "Boxadore" when we blissfully went to pick ours up.  Nothing could go wrong with a free Craigslist ad, right!?*

 The Lab Boxer mix tends to produce a dog that is intelligent and very good with kids. If there is a personality drawback, it is the fact the dog tends to have an absolute ton of energy. If you don't have very active kids or a family member who will take the dog for a run each day, you may end up with a pup that destroys things in the house because they have so much pent up energy. 

I'm a sucker for handsome men and dogs

So, back to St. Nicholas.  Did you know the Scandinavian, Slavic and German countries have sort of an anti-St. Nicholas who punishes bad children? He goes by many different names, and can look quite frightening!  I believe he is in the "trickster" tradition of Puck or Loki, but can be quite sinister. So we're thinking of renaming Little Bear, our anti-St. Nicholas, our bad Christmas dog**

                  Black Pete (or Swarte Piet), Santa's mischievous little helper

                  Krampus, the original coal-gifter (and sometimes terrifying child-eater)

                     Or maybe Arius, the original Anti-St. Nick!

For more less-than-perfect Church Year in the home reading, see Rebecca Sicree's classic article on the gift-giving Lizard Man, Bethlehem Baboons, and Advent Air Bazookas! 

--------------------


* concerned dog lovers: He's 80 lbs and just had some mild indigestion; he's fine (and more importantly, my carpet is fine)

 **everyone else, wondering why we still have this monster: Who else are we going to mock, ridicule, deride, and snuggle on the couch with?  He is the ultimate family court fool, and he seems to keep a good sense of humor about it.  Plus, he keeps bad guys away and is a good mouser.