trying real hard to get into the christmas mood

Ok so here we are one week into December, we actually have snow, my tree is up (and finally decorated) not too much done in the way of shopping, but for some reason I am just not feeling it this year. So I was surfin the web the other day, and I came across a blog where a lady was talking about Nikolaus day. It is Dec. 6, its a German holiday where you put out your shoes by the front door, and Nikolaus, the German Santa Clause comes and puts a gift in them and some candy, I thought what the heck we should try it!!! So I gathered the kids around last night explained what we were going to do, tried to calm them down a little bit, laughed at zach and joey as they rolled their eyes at me, but then laughed more as they got their biggest shoes. Then felt extra loved when jason made sure I had a pair of shoes ready too. Then we all went to bed hoping it would work (since we are irish not german) but really hoping it would............ And sure enough.........
The kids each got a little gift..........

which totally thrilled them..........

even if they didn't want to wake up.......

And some candy :)

And what was really fun, was he left me some really cool German noodles so now I can experiment with some new dinner tonight I hope my kids will eat them, they look so cool, they are black, yellow, and red noodles, way fun. Don't know what to do with them, they may end up with Italian sauce on the german noodles hehehe. oh well what do you do right?