Happy St. Nicholas Day!
Last night I had a delicious fondue dinner with Matt and Michele (my brother and sister-in-law) in honor of St. Nicholas Day, which is celebrated in Switzerland on December 6. Michele’s family is Swiss, and I lucked out in getting to partake of this year’s festivities.
Contrary to what I thought before I knew any better, in Switzerland, St. Nicholas Day is different than Christmas. On St. Nicholas Eve, children in Switzerland leave out a boot, and hopefully wake up on Dec. 6 to find it filled with chocolates, nuts and oranges. St. Nicholas - or Samichlaus - is accompanied on his journeys by a dark and scary friend Schmutzli and a donkey. Rumor has it that the bad kids get coal and a beating from Schmutzli’s switch. Lucky for me, I got a Lindt chocolate snowman instead. Happy St. Nicholas Day!
Photo from the Switzerland Traveler
Tags: chocolate, Matt, Michele, Samichlaus, Santa Switzerland, Schmutzli, St. Nicholas Day, swiss Christmas, Swiss Santa, Switzerland
December 8th, 2007 at 4:57 am
…and I didn’t even know about the boot - I’d always thought it was a sack!
And as I’m known for being pedantic :-) I don’t think most people refer to pi as “infinite”, the number of figures after the decimal point is infinite; although “irrational” is clearly a more succinct description.
btw, nice blog, informative and very well written! Good luck with the company.