Blessed Happy Enduring Wondrous Feast of Saint Nikolaus – the true Santa Claus. My daughter Kate wrote this icon I’m holding in the picture – we scraped every penny we had so she could take the lessons. If you want to hear a story about the hope and eyes of truth and love of a child it’s about our youngest daughter . It’s not a story about theology but it might be – because it’s out of the mouths of babes and unless ye become like children … we never spoke of Santa Claus with our oldest but of Saint Niklaus – though in truth we made no distinction. It’s possible that we left cookies of which we took a bite and left as evidence and of which she found. And in sixth grade every kid in that elementary school class made fun of her and said Santa Claus is a fake and your parents are liars – you are so sheltered. She came home crying. Angry. Heartbroken – of course – we are her parents. Did we do something wrong.??? I don’t know. But for her youngest sister we learned our lesson and – said there is not a Santa Claus. Or so we thought. Yes there is a Saint Nikolaus but not a Santa Claus. We would not again have a daughter so ruthlessly hurt. And then ( and this is no lie )- our youngest daughter took a Santa Claus sized bite out of each of the cookies one year (and she was young – too young to do it )- and left them for us to find – in my heart it’s always been God inspired – because she left the cookies for me – and specifically said Santa Claus took a bite out of these mom. She was – like in kindergarten. She did that just like she left the quarter under her own pillow from the tooth fairy that I wasn’t going to trick her into believing – to show us in the morning. Each one of our children has taught us so very very much – the heart of Faith in their child love touching the waning needful Faith in us. This story is true about a child wanting to embrace wonder and goodness. And it is offered to you On this Feastal Day of Saint Nichoolas my wish for you is to believe and keep your wonder alive.