I'm so sorry I wasn't able to give everyone a heads up about yesterday, St. Nicholaus day! I was too busy celebrating.

I am a Christmas maniac. St. Nicholaus day is like the opening kick-off for me.

Yes, I feel a little guilty that the beginning of Advent doesn't give me the same jolt. What can I say? That "Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel" song is dreary. It has the words "captive" and "exile" and "mourns" in it. I know it also has the word 'rejoice' in it, but only after that dreary tune and the words "captive" and "mourns".

I come from a long line of Christmas maniacs.

When I was a little girl my mother would put a sheet up over the door of the living room for an entire week. The room was off limits, we lived in the kitchen. It was very, very exciting. In later years we actually watched television in the kitchen during that week! Unheard of!

Why did she brick up the living room? Because Santa was in there! Not every second, but according to her, on and off all week, getting things ready. And boy oh boy on Christmas morning it looked like Santa and his elves had been in there all week.

But before that, on December 6th, weeks before the room was sealed off, in the dusk of evening and never quite when we expected it even though we had waited all day for it, a thundering pounding came on the front door. No matter how fast we ran, we could never catch the elf or St. Nick out there. But there would be a small gift for each of us there in the porch light.

I know there are some sour people out there, who probably love the song "Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel", who would argue that children should not be putting their faith in Santa and elves and toys in the moonlight.

To them I say, leave me alone and go sing to your Gregorian Chant records.

Here's what I got out of my maniac Christmas family's shenanigans: they loved us enough to do all that to make a magical time for us.

So as an adult I have to pass that on. Nothing could stop me.

Although...when I was a young nun and had a room full of wiggling seven year olds and I asked them if they weren't excited that it was nearly St. Nicholaus day and got blank stares because the tradition apparently had died out or they weren't all Germans like the people in the town where I grew up, I took it upon myself to give them the thrill.

For several days I mentioned that St. Nick would come and pound on our classroom door on December the 6th and leave a treat for everyone.

On the big day I reminded them several times that at some point we might hear a loud knock on our classroom door and if we ran fast enough maybe we could catch that jolly old elf, St. Nick. There would be candy!

I had procured a box of Tootsie Roll Pops to stick out there. They're so cheery and colorful. There was enough so the children could take some home to their St. Nicholaus deprived siblings (all nine or ten of them). I had arranged for an eighth grade boy leave the box and pound on the door and high tail it out of there. It didn't occur to me that he wouldn't have had to run at all but just stroll nonchalantly by. He probably got a charge out of being able to run in the halls. Just this once.

Anyhow, it all went off without a hitch. I waited until the day was almost over so there wouldn't be candy chaos. We didn't know about sugar highs back then, but we weren't stupid. They can't eat candy in school. If they start eating candy in school what's next? Crack cocaine and New Math, that's what. I would slide St. Nick in just before it was time to say their Act of Contrition before school's end. Maybe we would even skip the Act of Contrition today! We could start with one tomorrow!

So there came the big pounding at the door and I think I said something like, "Oh children! It's St. Nick! Run! Run to catch him!" It took me a second to realize that not only had no one budged, they were sitting there with their eyes like saucers, not in childish wonder, but in mortal terror that if they ran to the door they would see an elf.

It had never occurred to me as a child that if I actually saw the elf that that would be really scary, although it makes perfect sense to me now. If I saw an elf I would be terrified. Really, wouldn't you be? Think about it. Yeesh.

( I don't think I've ever mentioned it here, but I have a fear of the Good Year Blimp and the St. Louis Arch. To me, seeing both of those things are like seeing an elf.)

There they sat. I ran to the door and looked for the elf. The eighth grader had made a clean get away, God love him. The second graders sat firm.

"Look, children! The elf has been here!" I oozed. I thought they could still catch on to some of the magic if they could at least see the box that had been left there by the magical scary person. But I quickly surmised that they were terrified enough that the elf might be lurking in the doorway of the first graders room and jump out at them if they came over to look.

So I dragged the box in. They enjoyed the candy. I hope all the extras they took actually went home to their siblings and not as a stash to keep in their school bags to eat later while they worked on New Math.

I never did that again.

But I do it here and to whomever I can get away with doing it to every year. More on that tomorrow.