St Nicholas Day 2009
A small December kindness in a year when household budgets had been badly squeezed.
Happy St Nicholas Day.
The scale of this custom is what makes it durable, and that was particularly visible in a year when money was short.
What goes under the pillow is small by design. A sweet, a book, a modest toy. There is no expectation of anything more, and a child who receives something small on the nineteenth of December is not receiving less than the neighbours because the neighbours are also giving something small.
Compare that with the escalating gift expectations attached to other winter holidays in most of Europe, and the sense of it becomes obvious.
To every household with a child waking early tomorrow: a good day.
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