Saint Nicholas

Today is my daughter Niki's name day.  May God grant you many, many blessed years to come!  I love you with all my heart!!!

One of my brother's brought this icon back for Niki from Bari, Italy a few years ago.  (The relics of Saint Nicholas were moved to Bari from Myra in 1087.)

One of my favorite websites is the St. Nicholas Center.  I visit it every year to re-tell the story of Saint Nicholas to my kids.  We explore the website and talk about Niki's patron saint and also the story of Santa Claus.  It is an invaluable source.

A tradition in our family is to attend Liturgy on our name days (if offered) and then celebrate with a special dinner, reading/talking about our saint, and eating a special name day cake.  Our focus is on the story we tell our children about their saint.  How can their saint be a role model for them?  How can they emulate their saint today?  Why is it important to strive to do God's will and not our own?

One tradition we have unique to Niki's name day is we put up our Christmas tree every year (for about the past 5 or 6 years) on December 6th.  Then we take it down on Theophany - January 6th.

Saint Zacharias

Many Years our Dear Zacharias!

Today we commemorate Saints Zacharias and Elizabeth. Our son, Zach, came to us through foster care when he was three years old and he very quickly connected with the name Zacharias even before we started calling him by the name. One of our favorite young Zach stories is a time when he was pointing at the icons grandma had just sent him and his younger brother, Chris. He pointed to his and said, "That's my icon! Saint Zacharias!" Then pointing to his brother's icon, Saint Christopher, he said, "That's Chris' icon. Saint Chris-arias!" We adopted Zach (and his two brothers) two years ago.

Today Les read the story of Saints Zacharias and Elizabeth from our Orthodox children's bible after dinner. Saints Zacharias and Elizabeth were the parents of Saint John the Baptist. Elizabeth was barren for many, many years. An angel came to Zacharias and told him his wife would give birth to a son and to name the child John, but Zacharias did not believe the angel. Elizabeth was well beyond the years of child-bearing and because of his disbelief, he was made mute and he could not speak. For many months, Zacharias was unable to say even a single word. After Saint John was born, there was some confusion on what to name the baby. Everyone turned to Zacharias to ask him his opinion and he signaled for a writing tablet and wrote - "His name is John." Immediately, he was able to speak again for the first time since initially learning his wife would have a baby. (Luke 1:5-23; Luke 1:57-80)

All of us listened and then Les asked the kids questions about the story. It is our goal to read or tell the story of our children's patron saints to them every year on their name day. We hope that by doing so, our children will learn examples of how to live their life for Christ and apply it to their own lives today.