St Nicholas Day 2019

Happy St Nicholas Day.

My favourite detail of this custom is the twig. Tradition says that a child who has behaved badly receives a small branch instead of a gift, and the threat is deployed with some seriousness throughout December.

In fifteen years of asking, I have never met an adult who actually received one, and I have never met a parent who administered it. The twig exists entirely as a rhetorical instrument. Everybody understands this, including the children, and the system continues to function.

There is something very sensible in a tradition that maintains a sanction it has no intention of using. It works precisely because nobody is required to be cruel to make it work.

To every household with a child waking early tomorrow: a good day.