Hallmark

Nikolaustag 2025

Today is one of my favorite days of the entire Christmas season…Nikolaustag!

We tend to celebrate this holiday in a German way, so of course our main activity today was…Christmas on The Hill?

Yes, some of us spent the afternoon in the Italian neighborhood of St. Louis to attend a fun local event. It wasn’t our normal Nikolaustag, but it was fun to switch things up a bit! And we still had our traditional dinner of chicken Döner Kebab this evening:

This year’s gingerbread dessert was a tiramisu:

And we had our traditional wassail while decorating the tree (I didn’t get a picture of the drink, but I did get a shot of one of this year’s ornaments…the theme was Pokémon). I realized this year that the Fab Five fall into two camps about decorating the tree…three of them want to hang their personal ornaments near each other in a collection, and two of them want to scatter their personal ornaments all throughout the tree. These two methods of decorating are pretty incompatible when five people are trying to hang ornaments, and that results in some hilarious conversations!

It wasn’t quite our regular Nikolaustag, especially since Bunny had to work today, and Turkey was at school taking a scary national math exam, but it was fun!

Nikolaustag 2024

We’re a day late, but today we celebrated Nikolaustag! We wanted to wait until Bunny was home from college, which just happened to be today. We did all of our favorite Nikolaustag things, starting with stockings and decorating the tree. In addition to the children’s yearly ornaments, I also added two new ornaments…a Christmas Tree Cake that Ryan surprised me with this morning, and Hallmark’s rendition of “It’s a Small World.”

We always have wassail while we decorate:

And for dinner, we had our traditional meal of döner kebab:

I like to make a gingerbread dessert for Nikolaustag…this year, it was gingerbread whoopie pies:

This is one of my favorite days of the year, and between Bunny being home and the traditions, it feels like Christmastime is really here!

Partners

Last year, I completed our “12 Days of Christmas” ornament set from Hallmark, which left me wondering what we’d add to the tree this year. After all, that series gave me 12 straight years of not even having to think about what our annual addition to our holiday decor would be, because I knew it was whatever came next in the song. As soon as I saw this “Partners” statue ornament, though, I knew that this year wouldn’t be a problem, because it’s the perfect way to commemorate the Disney 100 year (and Turkey’s, Bunny’s, and my trip to Disneyland this spring!).

Twelve Drummers Drumming

The day I have been low-key dreading since since 2011 is finally here…I have completed my Hallmark “12 Days of Christmas” ornament collection.

Back then, I wrote:

“What I wasn’t expecting, however, was to realize just how old my children will be by the time I get to the drummers drumming! Turkey will be 19–almost 20! And that means Bunny will be 18, Moose 17, and Ladybug 15. And I’m not even going to think about how old the unborn Chickadee will be–I refuse to think of her as anything other than a tiny baby!”

And yet, here we are. Turkey will indeed be 20 in a couple of months. Bunny is 18, Moose is 17, and Ladybug is 15. And even if I didn’t want to think about it then, the fact of the matter is, the baby with whom I was pregnant in 2011 is now 10, almost 11 years old.

Time marches on. And while I hoped then that my children would slow down growing up a bit, as we all know, it doesn’t really work that way. And so, one short year at a time, I finished my collection, all while my children grew up right before my eyes.

Eleven Pipers Piping

I can’t believe that today I hung the penultimate ornament in our Hallmark “12 Days of Christmas” series on the tree!

I wonder what the final ornament will look like?

Ten Lords-a-Leaping

As hard as it is to believe, we’re now at the 10th Day of Christmas in the Hallmark ornament series based on the familiar Christmas song:

I can’t believe there are only two more ornaments to look forward to!

Eight Maids-a-Milking

This is the first non-bird ornament in our Hallmark 12 Days of Christmas ornament collection…even “Five Golden Rings” featured a bird! I’m not really sure what to do with this abrupt change in styling, but I assume after the ladies dancing, lords-a-leaping, pipers piping, and drummers drumming join her on the tree, I’ll be used to it!