Anyone else's kids going ape as St. Nicholas approaches?

[jessia]

Or how do you multi-culti families share out the different cultural traditions?

To save going bankrupt, and to blend both our traditions (DH and mine), we have grafted all my childhood traditions connected with Father Christmas (stockings, leaving sweets and alcohol out for him and carrots for the reindeer, etc.) onto 6th December. He is referred to by me as Father CHristmas and by DH (Polish, Catholic) as St. Nicholas.
In their stockings they have one of the presents they asked for in their letters to FC/St. N plus loads of daft little things like colouring books, crayons, cookie cutters, scarves, gloves,some chocolate, a satsuma and a few nuts wraped in tinfoil.

SO mine have just collapsed into bed, exhausted from the sheer emotional stress of seeing the Christmas lights put up in the window "so he doesn't miss our house" (we are in deepest rural Poland), parting with some of their own much-coveted chocolate as a calorific snack to keep him going, hanging their stockings up, and wondering if it is the middle of the night yet...

Your stories please (this is where Christmas starts for me)

[MadAboutTrifle]

Just waiting for the fun to start in a couple of hours, well hopefully I've got that long. Although my two DS already know what they're getting, as they're old enough now to pick out their own presents, sometimes weeks in advance, they're still excited.

Even though I've lived in Belgium for what seems like centuries, for me Christmas is still the main event, but for many of my DS' friends it seems to be St. N. I try to equal it out present-wise, if they got lots of things today, then at Christmas they get less, but I'm a big softy so always buy more than I should.

As DH is from a culture that doesn't celebrate Christmas, it's always been up to me to organize the day and I usually cook and invite and am never short of guests as most Belgians celebrate christmas eve and even though they're still a bit hungover and not at all hungry when they come to us they love the whole English stuff-yourselves- silly-get-out-les-crackeurs-and-serve-ze- trifle thing.

Can't wait !

[belgo]

Yes!

We've been up for the last couple of hours opening presents from Sinterklaas, and now the arguments over the presents are beginning, in particular because ds aged one year keeps on pushing dd2 aged 4 years (who is rather delicate and girly and cannot defend herself from her one year old brother) away from the toy cooker that Sinterklaas brought her.

DD1 is very happy with her toy cat and lego but really wanted a specific Barbie - let's hope that Sinterklaas has arranged with Father Christmas that Sinterklaas brings the cat and Father Christmas brings the Barbie...as long as dd1 remains a good girl and tidies up her toys every night

[jessia]

Oh Belgo that sounds like us. DD1 was desperate for a "Barbie Musketeer's" costume 3 weeks ago when she wrote her letter. Cue yours truly moving heaven and earth to cobble one together from Zorro capes and boys' swords, a process involving copious amounts of glitter glue and surreptitious drying thereof on top of wardrobes...(astonishingly Mattel seem to have neglected a vast market niche here!)
But she barely looked at it when it came to present-opening this morning and bewailed the pram that stingy FC/St. Nick had neglected to provide.
Looks like the desk lamp mummy and daddy were going to buy for Xmas will have to wait. But they were suitably impressed that the reindeer had eaten all the carrots.

Super friends as well - I told one that DH and I don't buy each other anything so last night at about 9 pm our dogs started going crazy and DH went outside to find two Santa's hats stuffed full of goodies for us too!!

[belgo]

Sinterklaas comes with a white horse to Belgium, but they still eat the carrots!

[Weta]

Well we seem to have messed it up this year, as we have moved from France (where they don't celebrate it) to Luxembourg (where they do) and poor old St Nicholas didn't know we were here We've promised to let him know for next year though.

I had no idea it would be such a big deal, especially as DS1 is in the English section of the European school. We grudgingly accepted the mounds of chocolate littering our house from the numerous St. Nicholas events (dairy allergic child meaning we get to eat it) but neglected to do anything present-wise. Turned up on Monday to all these kids proudly telling DS1 what they'd got... aargh!

Jessia, I like your idea of grafting the Xmas stocking bit onto 6th Dec and might try that next year. We have Xmas with my in-laws in France and so far I've insisted on present opening on the 25th on the grounds that the children are still too small to stay up, but this isn't going to work forever. Plus it sounds like a great idea to separate out the excitement a bit!

[jessia]

Actually our kids already get 2 lots of presents on 24/25 Dec because we are in Poland, where presents are normally given on 24th after dinner. SO we go to ILs' for Christmas Eve and they get presents there from Ils and DBIL, and then on Christmas Day they get presents from us and anyone else under our tree. So we figured adding Father Christmas into the mix would just be too much, that's why he got moved to 6th Dec.
Also, like you, many kids here get their main present on 6th Dec, so we couldn't have DDs feeling left out (the amount I spend is creeping up every year...)