St. Nicholas Day Party

We went to the St. Nicholas Feast Day Party at Mater Dei Catholic Church in Irving today.

We put together some food and some ornaments that the children made, and got a table to sell our wares.  At first, business was slow.  I thought it was because of the economy, and people were inclined to watch their money a bit closer.  I also thought they may have been worried about the local version of 'Occupy Wall Street' might drop in to protest the corporate greed of the family-based Catholic entrepreneur.  All I need is to have 'Occupy Mater Dei' show up and insist that we distribute the goodies we made for free to all the people who can't find a job.

Thankfully that did not happen, and after a while we started selling.  I think people took a look at everything before deciding on purchases.  We had a near monopoly on food, so things went well.  For a time, the homemade 'sleighs' were literally FLYING off the table.

Here Zelie takes a break in the action to wolf down a sandwich before the next onslaught of consumers:

We sold candied pecans - not our own pecans, sadly - and brownies, cookies, banana bread, and blueberry muffins.  We sold two types of Christmas ornaments: some were plastic ones where you bake them in the oven to fill the colors of the ornaments.  The others were made with barbed wire from our property, shaped like Texas, and then backed with felt pieces that resembled the Texas flag.  Here is an example:



But the biggest sellers were our sleighs, made with small candy canes, KitKat candy bars, and either a little box of Nerds or Junior Mints.  With little bit of ribbon and tape, we made them into the shape of a sled, or sleigh:

The kids covered the Nerds or Junior Mints with aluminum foil.  As I said, these treats literally flew off the table.


There were craft projects for the children to do, and a little train which rode around in the parking lot.  The rain put a damper on the outside activities right around the time that the inside show started.  Here Bernard, held by his Godfather Nathaniel, watches a puppet show featuring large mice and a nun that sings.  He was fascinated by it.

The final part of the show was when St. Nicholas showed up.  Here he is, exhorting the children to be good:

Here are three of the children ZelieLouisa, Maximilian, and Marcellinus watching St. Nicholas, looking a bit bored.

I missed them greeting St. Nicholas, so I had them come back up for a picture.  This was really inconvenient for Max, so this is as close to a smile as I could get.

The man who portrayed St. Nicholas, the German dancers, the puppeteers, all made it a wonderful day for the children.  Well done!