St Nicholas Day (Part 1)

Happy St Nicholas day to all who celebrate today!

I was up early, a bit before 7 AM and had the Fia Sauce

cooking in the slow cooker by 7:30 AM!

Liturgy at 9:30, I was there, miraculously, before then! :) 

The St Nicholas day lunch at my place went very well,

I was very pleased with it.

Lovely people, the meal went as planned,

pasta first,

then baked (breaded from box!) fish and salad

then cake with tea and coffee.

The baked fish was really good...

one of my friends helped me plate everyone's meal, which

was nice...

It was enjoyed by all...

We had white wine with meal and red with the 

chocolate cake ;) :) 

We sang 

Saint Nicholas the Saintly

...the words as follows:

Oh who loves Nicholas the saintly

O who loves Nicholas the saintly,

O who serves Nicholas the saintly,

Him will Nicholas receive,

And give help in time of need:

Holy Father Nicholas!*

He who dwells in God's holy mansions,

Is our help on the land and oceans,

He will guard us from all ills,

Keep us pure and free from sins

Holy Father Nicholas!*

Holy Saint, hearken to our prayer,

Let not life drive us to despair,

All our efforts shall not wane,

Singing praises to your name:

Holy Father Nicholas!

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Here is our local priest singing this song... 

 (Another version of the song is here)

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The little girl was so wonderful and her Mother

told me how she hugged each of the stuffed animals goodbye 

before she left! :) 

***

It was a very peaceful joyful and festive meal!

I was so pleased and it was such a blessing!

And clean up was great, two friends helped put away the food

and load the dishwasher... I love that I have some 

pretty dishes that I can put in the dishwasher,

as my Grandma always did through the years.... :) 

***

I had a nice talk with my Mom this afternoon, 

after everyone had left and I was washing up some more dishes...

And it was so nice to have leftovers to eat for dinner

with Mr Husband! 

We had the pasta sauce with added canned (drained) clams

and a spinach salad for dinner... we were both hungry and had seconds of the Pasta! 

***

Various guests brought treats...

radishes for the salad (really good ones!),

a bottle of red wine, two bottles of white (one is unopened and will be

kept for later!) and I was given this tower of goodness, which will wait

until Christmas is here as these goodies are full of yummy caramel filled milk chocolate!!...

Fun! :) I have it under the Christmas tree for now,

all pretty and green! 

Well, it was a blessing of a day for me, I am so grateful....

***

I just commented on my last blog post to Lisa and thought I would repost it here

so that you know why I will be celebrating St Nicholas day again 

(why I have 'part 1' in my title of this post):

it's PART 1 because we will have St Nicholas day again on the Julian calendar... some of the Orthodox churches went to a revised Julian calendar, meaning that many dates are with the Western Christian calendar, including this one, Christmas, Annunciation and others. 

***

So that means I have more cookies to bake! :) 

***

Things are still difficult in our unbloggable but this day really lifted up my spirits

and was a day of joy, a real gift, 

typical of St Nicholas to be so generous with.