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| Saint Nicholas http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=8830 |
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| Author: | Secret Santa [ Mon Dec 06, 2010 8:24 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Saint Nicholas |
I have paid no attention to relevent ages or anything in this so I hope it's ok! For Jenny, I hope you've had a good monday! Joey Maynard sat in the saal in her new house Freudesheim. Today was the 5th of December and as was life in a new country she wanted to start a new tradition with her children; St Nicholas day. Once everyone was settled Joey looked round at her extensive family, the 11 year old triplets sat curled up together on the sofa, 9 year old Steven and 7 year old Charles sat at her feet. 5 year old Mike was playing with the 18 month old twins. ‘Len, you know you asked what Saint’s day it was today’ ‘yes mama, you said it was Saint Nicholas’s day, did you get it wrong?’ ‘no precious, I’m going to tell you a little bit about Saint Nicholas’ Len smiled at her mother, naturally clever she loved nothing more than finding out interesting facts and was frequently found with her head in a book. Joey began: ‘Saint Nicholas was born during the third century in the village of Patara’ ‘Where’s that?’ interrupted Steven ‘At the time it was Greek but is now on the southern coast of Turkey’ Joey replied smiling down at her son before continuing ‘he had very rich parents but they died of an epidemic- of a serious illness-‘ Joey corrected herself before she could be interrupted ‘Nicholas obeyed Jesus’ words to ‘sell what ypu own and give the money to the poor and spent all the money he had to help the poor, those suffering and those who were sick’ ‘wow’ breathed Len ‘He gave up all his money to help others no wonder he became a saint’ ‘Yes and he dedicated his life to serving God and he became Bishop of Myra whilst still very young’ ‘this is boring’ interrupted Mike turning back to his toys ‘Well if thats what you think, go back to your toys’ although Joey spoke gently enough she had a certain edge to her voice that made Mike start concentrating again. ‘Now on the 6th of December, in Switzerland, everyone celebrates the feast of St Nicholas and during the night St Nicholas creeps into everyone’s houses and fills all the good little boys and girl’s shoes with sweets.’ ‘I want sweeties please’ Mike said satring at his mother with bright blue eyes ‘well it depends if you have been good my lad’ Joey replied ‘as Nicholas is often accompanied by knecht ruprecht who will beat naughty children and not let them have any sweets’ Mike’s eyes widened in horror but he uttered no sound. ‘So now children run and get a shoe each and bring it down here. The children ran off and presently returned each with a shoe. Len came flying down a minute or so later carrying three shoes. ‘I bought Felix and Felicity a shoe each as they can’t get their own’ ‘Thank you my precious’ Joey smiled at her eldest and dropped a kiss on her head. ‘Now line them up along the fire place and off to bed with you, you’ll see what you get in the morning. With that she chased them up the stairs to bed. Just thought you might want to know: for many children, Nikolaus also elicited fear, as he was often accompanied by Knecht Ruprecht, who would threaten to beat, or sometimes actually beat the children for misbehavior. In Switzerland, he would threaten to put bad children in a sack and take them back to the Black Forest. In other accounts he would throw the sack into the river, drowning the naughty children within. These traditions were implemented more rigidly in Catholic countries such as Austria. In highly Catholic regions, the local priest was informed by the parents about their children's behavior and would then personally visit the homes in the traditional Christian garment and threaten them with rod-beatings. |
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| Author: | JennyWren [ Mon Dec 06, 2010 8:34 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Saint Nicholas |
Thank you Santa! I love the story of St. Nicholas. I only learnt the scary side of what happens to naughty children last year when I had a child who grew up in Germany was in my class. I had told them the basic story of St. Nicholas and invited her to share some of the things that happened. She assured us that he was very real and told of how he hides presents around the house. She also then went on to tell of a monster that takes away children who have been naughty and leaves them in the woods (where their parents then collect them from). She showed pictures of him and they were very scary. She was a great storyteller and as she believed it all it had a really profound impact on the rest of the class. Letters arrived the next day from parents of children who had had nightmares wanting to know what I had been teaching them! |
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| Author: | Alison H [ Mon Dec 06, 2010 9:18 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Saint Nicholas |
I like the story of St Nicholas too. I'm not sure if St Nicholas's Day was something that was never marked in this country or if it got lost during the Reformation - I think probably the latter, because I vaguely remember reading about a tradition of a young boy reading the service in Canterbury (?) - but I feel a bit left out  .
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| Author: | ChubbyMonkey [ Mon Dec 06, 2010 9:54 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Saint Nicholas |
I didn't know the stories around him, so thankyou one and all for enlightening me! |
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| Author: | PaulineS [ Mon Dec 06, 2010 10:41 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Saint Nicholas |
The boy Bishop was elected from Cathedral choristers in the Middle ages and has been reintroduced at Hereford cathedral. The following web page has more information. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_bishop |
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| Author: | Alison H [ Mon Dec 06, 2010 11:02 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Saint Nicholas |
Oh good, I'm glad I didn't imagine it - thanks for posting that, Pauline  . & presumably they're being chosen from the Hereford/Armiford cathedral school where David and Rix were once pupils .
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| Author: | mell [ Tue Dec 14, 2010 4:12 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Saint Nicholas |
Thank you, I knew a bit of the story but not much and definitely nothing about the scary side. |
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| Author: | Fiona Mc [ Mon Jan 03, 2011 2:41 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Saint Nicholas |
Thanks, loved all the datails of St Nick |
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