St Nicholas Day 2004
The nineteenth of December, when children find something under the pillow and the winter holidays properly begin.
Happy St Nicholas Day.
My first winter here, and my introduction to a custom I found immediately charming: on the night of the eighteenth, something small appears under a child's pillow. Not the grand production of a later holiday — a sweet, a small toy, a book. And, traditionally, a twig for anyone who has been difficult, which I am told is administered with a good deal of humour.
What I like about it is the scale. It is a small kindness on a dark December morning, and it opens the season rather than concluding it. There is a month of winter holiday ahead and this is the door into it.
To every household with a child waking up early today, and to everyone who remembers waking up early themselves: a good day to you.
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