Did Szent Mikulás Visit You?

Did you polish your best boot(s) and put them on the windowsill or in front of the door to be filled by Szent Mikulás? If you did and you were good, you name will be recorded in his ledger. Szent Mikulás will fill your boots with presents from his great bag of presents and treats.

Unless you are wise enough to get extra-large boots for the occasion, there will not be much room for the candies, tangerines, oranges, walnuts, apples, and chocolate Mikulás figures that the saint leaves behind. There seems to be a bit of egocentric behavior going on with the chocolate selfies.

Krampus (Krampusz) is the ugly devil who accompanies saintly goodie man. He is supposed to be a frightening figure with horns and chains, dressed in fur. That is old school. After the series of horror films like Silent Night, Deadly Night, it is challenging for any devil to outdo scariness. For those of us who prefer naughty things in life that bring some unadulterated pleasure all year round, we subjected or treated to, depending on your point of view, to receiving a golden wad of sticks or a wooden spoon. For the bawdy among us, this could be much better than an orange!

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Google Giggles

The Google design of the day was curiously Christmasy.When I scrolled over it, it showed this "Ted ki Te is este a csizmadia az ablakba". Inquisitive is my middle name, which prompted me to type it into Google translator. The response was "We are sorry, we cannot translate Maori yet." The irony is that we are going to New Zealand in a couple more weeks, but something told me that with a Hungarian IP address, this was not Maori.

I sent it out to my students for translation. Basically, it is what I thought it was, time to get ready for Szent Mikulás. Of course all of the darlings had to point out the grammatical mistakes in the Hungarian. Take it up with Google. 


Szent Mikulás was an old bishop, the European Santa replacement who delivers chocolates and fruit to good girls and boys. As usual with all goodies, there is a catch. You need to have your shoes or boots polished sitting on the window sill or out the front door, to be filled with these treats. Seems like a lot of effort for a few candies and fruit. 


This tradition obviously dates way back before they had any concept of cross infections between smelly sweat soaked boots and food. Give me that stocking hung by the chimney with care in hopes that St. Nicholas would soon be there.


I tried the window sill thing one year. All I received was a shoe full of pigeon poop. I must have been a really bad boy. Usually, you get golden twigs or a wooden spoon. 

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