Saturday, December 5, 2009

St. Nicholas Day

 


Tomorrow is St. Nicholas day. This is a big deal here in Switzerland. St. Nicholas comes and puts nuts, fruit and candy in shoes. He comes with his friend, Schmutzli. Schmutzli is a black man who kidnaps the naughty children and takes them out to the woods. To do what with them, I don't know. Draw your own conclusion.

One of the requirements is that you write a letter to St. Nicholas saying why you are good. We all wrote letters. Sarah's is above. I'll translate for those of you who aren't adept at reading First Grade:

Dear St. Nicholas

I have bin good. Because I have not had any screaming fits. Diig was bad. Because he pulled hair. But he is cute. (Then on the side, in case St. Nicholas doesn't know): Diig is a baby.

Isn't that awesome? I'm not sure where she picked up spelling Diig, when his name is properly spelled Diggas (poor kid, he's doomed, doomed, I tell you). All of it is true, by the way. Sarah was having major melt downs at least twice a week. She got promised a china doll if she could go two weeks without a melt down. She did it in October and hasn't had a melt down since.

I wish we could say the same thing for Daniel's hair pulling. Ouch.

So, our shoes are out on the back porch, with our letters to St. Nicholas in them. Sarah is convinced that St. Nicholas is real, but that Schmutzli is just a story. We told her to clean her room just in case.

4 comments:

  1. That letter is awesome. Schmutzli is a little creepy. Eek! Forget "Santa's watching you!" Just threaten your kids with Schmutzli!

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  2. They teach Sarah cursive writing in first grade?

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  3. Is the scary part of Schmutzli the fact that he kidnaps kids and takes them to the woods to do whatever or is it that he is black. Is that part of the racism thing. Imagine if the guy was turkish.

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  4. Dom, I can't imagine the fear and trembling if Smutzli was Turkish! The poor Swiss people would definitely be good. :>)

    Of course it's because he kidnaps them. I think. My German is still terrible, so who knows?

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