St Nicholas Day, 6 December 2024
A greeting on the December date, and a note on the children whose pillow this year is in a shelter, a rented room or another country.
A happy St Nicholas Day to every household with a child in it.
The day sits on the December date now, and by this year it has settled — the children have stopped asking which date is the real one, which is how these things resolve.
What has not settled is where the pillows are. A great many of them this year are in rented rooms, in relatives' apartments, in dormitories, in another country. Some are in places where the parent doing the arranging is doing it alone.
The gift is small by tradition, and this year that is a mercy rather than a limitation. What the morning requires is that something is there, and that someone thought about it in advance.
To the volunteers filling the hospital and children's home lists tonight, and to every parent doing it quietly in a room that is not their own: a good morning tomorrow.
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