Pages from Portugal: surprise

I knew to expect gifts for Christmas... I mean, in a family like mine, gifts are given on every occasion that one could possibly think of celebrating! Crash your car? My mom will find a "Sorry you crashed your car" card. (I speak from experience). Get a new house? New job? Start practicing a new hobby? We Salewskis will find a way to celebrate it, and most likely it will come in a wrapped box, and in our case, with a stamp.

I wasn't surprised when my parents asked us what we missed and what we really wanted for Christmas, but I didn't expect them to have made special arrangements with good ol' St. Nick to have a package delivered to us BEFORE Christmas! They did! It arrived on Friday and was filled with Christmas goodies galore!

For those of you who hail from places outside of the Midwest or Scandanavia, I am deeply sorry that you were never able to experience the joys of St. Nick filling your stockings and/or shoes 20 days before Christmas. It is a tradition eagerly anticipated by children, as it makes the wait for Christmas a bit more bearable! For even those Midwesterners who may not know, St. Nick actually existed, and though it is difficult to know the exact details of his life, historians believe Nicholas was born in the third century in Patara, a village in what is now Turkey. He was born into an affluent family, but his parents died tragically when he was quite young. His parents had raised him to be a devout Christian, which led him to spend his great inheritance on helping the poor, especially children. He was known to frequently give gifts to children, sometimes even hanging socks filled with treats and presents.

Nicholas grew to be a well-loved Christian leader and was eventually voted the Bishop of Myra, a port city that the apostle Paul had previously visited (Acts 27:5-6). Nicholas reportedly also traveled to the legendary Council of Nicaea, where he helped defend the deity of Jesus Christ in A.D. 325. Following his death on December 6, 343, he was canonized as a saint. The anniversary of his death became the St. Nicholas holiday when gifts were given in his memory. He remained a very popular saint among Catholic and Orthodox Christians, with some two thousand churches named after him. The holiday in his honor eventually merged with Christmas, since they were celebrated within weeks of one another. (You can read more of this pastor's account and contrasting opinions too).

The point of this post is not only to recognize that St. Nick truly was a gift-giver, but that the Salewski's are too! :) Here's evidence that our halls are now decked!