Happy St Nicolas

Today, December 6th, was St Nicolas' Day. The girls and their little cousins were spoiled by the big Saint!

They got to see him a few times before at the toy store and in school and its was actually the first time Emilie took to someone like Santa or St Nicolas so I was pleasantly surprised :-) Claire on the other hand is completely scared of him and does not to have anything to do with him. She is fine till she sees him, before that she gets excited and wants to go but as soon as she is in front of him... Claire was out of sight!

At the toy store ------------ At school

Claire and Emilie's class with St Nicolas

Emilie and Claire prepared a plate last night in front of the chimney with carrots, sugar for his donkey, milk for Black Peter and chocolate and ... wine (did not have any beer in the house) for St Nic as well as a big poster that Claire painted in school and a picture Emilie made.

They both came to wake me up at 3.30, then 6.00 and finally 7.15 to aks me if he had already come by. So it was a looong night :-)

At 7.15, I told Emilie we could go but she needed to wait for Claire and go wake Maminou up first (at her request). Emilie quickly went to her sister's bed and told her it was time to go check out their presents... When we got to the living room, she was very surprised to see all the gifts. I had to tell her to wait and get Maminou, they all came back down and looked at everything (there were gifts for their 3 cousins as well) before starting to 'open' their own.

They were very surprised and pleased. They had not requested anything special - just mentionned piano, doll, princesses and ... yesterday in the car, Emilie said out of the blue that she would really like to go back to Disneyworld. Well, next to all their gifts, there was a note from St Nicolas telling them he had prepared a special trip for them. Maminou and Maman are going to take them to a magical country where they will get to meet Santa Claus and many other of his wonderful friends... They did not say anything at first but later on when we talked to Mike, Emilie sreamed 'I know, we are going to Disneyworld!' SO their surprise as you can now guess is a trip to Disneyland Paris in a few days. They don't quiet know or realize it yet...

Papy and Maminou help the girls open their gifts...

My 2 princesses ...

In the afternoon, we were joined by Sandrine and Jean-Luc with their 9 days old daughter, Chloé followed by Béné, Benji with Charline and Batiste. All the kids were spoiled again by the St Nicolas that came to their godmothers' house. Later on, we stepped outside Papy and Maminou's house to see Santa drive by with Black Peter with Charline, Béné, Sandrine and Jean-Marie and Bernadette, our cousins, who came to meet Chloé. Emilie loved it, she waved and sang the songs playing on the speakers as St Nicolas was approaching, she even climbed on one of the escort's motorcycle and did not want to get off! When he approached, she thanked him for all the gifts. Claire on the other hand, was very excited till he arrived in front of the house and run away crying... The girls as well as Charline and a lot of grandkids from the neighborhood got a bag of speculoos from him and Emilie and Charline even got a little stuffed animal that he kept in a closed bag :-) Then we waved them goodbye went back inside and finished the day with a glass of wine and some good cheeses!

At the end of the day, Emilie came to me and asked me why St Nicolas had white make-up on !

Emilie and Chloé ---------- Claire and her godmother, Beni

Emilie waves to St Nicolas and sits on the escort's motorcycle ... Wordless !

Black Peter and Saint Nicolas