This is how it went in our house: [...]
Many thanks, Esther, for the description of St Nicholas' Day in Holland. In Poland, we recognised it, but didn't *really* observe it; our gifts were brought by the first star (supposedly the same one which guided the 3 Kings) on the 24th. On Dec 6, we exchanged gifts in school (the holidays started on 22nd or 23rd, and we went back on Jan 7th, after Epiphany. Spell?); one drew a name around Dec 1, and had to provide something small (inexpensive) for that person on Dec 6.
There's a beautiful and most moving description of the "St Nicholas and the shoe" custom in Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables". It's where Jean Valjean (?) comes to "collect" Cossette (?) after his spell as a convict. Her mother's been dead for several years, and Cosette has been working (slaving) in a household which has two other girls (pampered daughters of her employers) in it. All 3 hang their sabots near the chimney the night before St Nicholas' Day, but only the other two ever find something in them. Until the night Jean Valjean comes to the village... That part of the book had been made into a smaller, separate one in Polish, and I used to read and re-read it at least 4 times a year from the time I was 6 until I was 16 :)
The confusion of the dates is, BTW, not altogether surprising. The feast of St Nicholas is on Dec 6th in *Roman* Catholic church, but on the 5th in the *Orthodox* one...
----- Tamara P Duvall Lexington, Virginia, USA Formerly of Warsaw, Poland http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd/
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