St Nicholas Day, 19 December 2008
The night when something small appears under a pillow.
Children here wake on this morning and look under the pillow, where a small gift has appeared: sweets, a book, something modest.
The modesty is the point. This is not the big present day; it is the first of the winter and it arrives quietly, weeks before anything else.
The other custom is a small piece of coal or a switch for children who were difficult, which is threatened all December and, so far as I can tell, never actually delivered.
Happy St Nicholas Day to every household with a pillow to look under.
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