a yule log would be excellent
to be honest anything with cinnamon, raisins, nuts and so forth is ok. i like stollens on a personal note but they are not especially solstice LOL
we tend to have a good hearty meal, casserole, fresh seasonal vegetables such s turnips, parsnips and the like, and then a yule log, plenty of bowls of nuts and seasonal fruit
so not much different from the christmas stuff but we try to make an effort to make it "ours".
house decorations would have a tree but decorated with dried fruit, plain lights and straw and wooden ornaments which don't have a christian theme. i have a heavy artificial bough of spruce with pine cones and berries instead of the glittery tinsel affairs the British love so much :D
so its more earth and season based

dont u guys eat 'oliebollen' in USA or were ever u live? Ahh, i feel sorry for ya! Oliebollen are the nicest things there are! I'm eating them now allready :D
Just love december....speculaas, pepernoten, oliebollen....jummie :P

st. nick and santa claus are the same people

I don't think they are, actually
it's easy to believe that, given the fact that they're elderly men in red outfits
who bring sweets through the chimney in december
but I remember reading that the origins are different
St Nicholas being the obviously catholic inspired one
and Santa/Father Christmas being more... heathen?
I'd have to look it up
but I used to think that they were the same, too, and then kept being corrected for it

sinterklaas :O

I live in the south west of UK and my family has saint nick aswell as father christmas because my grandad was brought up with saint nick instead so we go other his house and get presents 20 days before christmas

Thanks I love candy and my sims will probaly be pretty jumpy during the holidays! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"toys, candy and tangerines".

Tangerines? Okay. Um. Anyway, really cool. ^^

omg u guys are never on during school!! that is sooooo un cool!!

No offence, but it just looks like a little cricket bat to me.

heehee,
ok, so you have an edible chocolate cricket bat
works for me

x0tiggerbelle0x you say dath sinterklaas en santa are the same people dhats ride :D

Dutch people dat are alonge ago go to america de ware 4goten dat holley day en so whas santa born i haven sey dath on discovery


Sorry 4 my bad engols :s

WOW! I am from America however when I was a very young child we used to put a shoe outside our bedroom door one night a year and someone would put candies in it. My mother passed away when I was young so the tradition didnt stay with us. She was Swedish. I had forgotten all about doing this until reading this post. I really dont think we did this near Christmas though?? Anyway Thanks for the Download, the culture lessons and reminding me of my mother and wonderful childhood.

Well,we also have St. NIcholas here ( Sfântul Nicolae ) in Romania,on the 6th of december...good kids get sweets and fruits and stuff ... and the bad ones get a rod.I only got one rod once ^_^ ... oh,and we polish our boots and put them at the end of our beds and in the morning...yeyyy! Sweets! ^_^

its nice thank you

Speculaas are are marketed here in the US as Windmill Cookies. They are shaped like windmills and are available any time of year under various brands. Archway is the best. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...lance&n=3370831

I loved them as a kid to dip into milk! Yum Ours in the States usually have little slivers of almond too in them.

I was in Holland for New Year's this year and had oliebollen I didn't like them much though! Way too oily and rich, could barely finish one.

Your idea of making Nick Candies is cool, but I prefer thinking harder a bout their designs , you know the look is Important for more attraction, don't you think so Lethe_s?

I lived in Germany (Munich) for 4 year when I was little. (I'm 13)
German (or just Bavarian, I don't know) people has St.Nikolaus on December 6th.
In History, St.Nikolaus is expecially for kids. He's got his servant who "slaps" bad kid's parents ( anyway I loved this day ) and give to kids these biscuits calles Spekulatius (or Speculoos).
I would like to talk about the boots too. In Italy we usually put our boots near the beds and an old lady, poor dressed go in all roman and south italy houses and the next morning...Candy !!! Bot this happens on JANUARY the 6th.

Whatever...good job ! And Buon Natale .

Thanks for these St Nicolas treats!

We have it in France too, but only in the Eastern Regions. I live in Lorraine, and Saint Nicolas is actually the patron saint of the region, so it means a lot to us! We always have great festivals around the 6th of December!... presents and treats for Saint Nicolas, and again for Christmas! :D

Well, actually, they're the same guy!
In the christian tradition, there was only St Nicolas. Christmas was a religious day, but no presents were supposed to be given or to be received. Then, in the 1920s or so, CocaCola used the old guy (St Nicolas) and reshaped it in a more fashionable way (well... fashionable may not be the right word... less old-fashioned and, most of all, less religious, then). From then on, the image of Santa expanded and became associated to Christmas. But there is no religious meaning about Santa, since he's been used only to sell Cokes!
The very name "Santa" comme from Saint Nicolas "Sant'nicolas", "santa".
So, yes, they are the same, but they've evolved in two different ways. And yes, Santa is a Coco Cola invention!

Great!!! I love speculaas, now my sims can enjot it too!! Thanks!!!

Hah! Nikolaus Candy in June! My Sims will love this!

I'm from Austria (no kangaroos) and we also celebrate it. In the evening we polish our shoes and put them on the doormat. In the morning they're filled with little presents, like candies, mostly a pack of peanuts, tangerines (mandarins) and chocolate shaped like yours in tin foil and in shapes of the "Krampus". Hl. Nikolaus has a companion called "Krampus" and he's the bad guy. Hl. Nikolaus has a book in which the children are listed and when they were bad and good. If they were more often bad, they get coals instead of candies and the Krampus beat them with a switch and he also have a chain. This chain you can hear when dressed up adults came as Nikolaus and Krampus at the Kindergarten or Primalschool. Very, very frightening! Whoaa!

Last year in december, there was a big discusion if they forbit that spectacle, because they thought (and I guess still think) that it's not okay for children to be afraid of the Krampus and there are even children frightened by the Nikolaus. Nowadays the Krampus doesn't make anything, but when I was younger and in Kindergarten (that's a while ago) there were groups of teenagers that dressed up as Krampus' (There is no Plural, it's THE Krampus, but there were more than one) and they frightened children and other teens on the streets and runned after them, they even throwed bangers. We went "Krampus-hunting" and we were really brave!

And Spekulatius (which you call Spekulaas) is soooo tasty! Maybe somebody want to make these? And plates with peanuts and tangerines, we had them the whole december on the dining table as decoration and of course as nibbling!

Oh, didn't realized I've wrote that much.

Thanks for making such a lovely candy!

I love speculaas! and pepernoten.
We eat it with sinterklaas, a dutch tradition.
when I was young, we always put our shoes in front of the fireplace, and sing songs.
Then in the night Sinterklaas would come on the roof with his horse and black peters.
If you were nice he would put sweats and presents in you shoe, but if you were naughty, black peter would hit you with the "roe" and put you in a sac and bring you to spain.(there lived Sinterklaas)
On the 5th of December we had "Pakjesavond" (presentevening) and Sinterklaas brought all kinds of presents.

Lethe s can you also make oliebollen?

Now I'm hungry for pepernoten... out of season, no less.

In german speculaas is called Spekulatius. My dictionary says that could be translated with gingery / biscuit cookies. I've never tried to make it myself, we always buy it at the store. I love it - we even get it at Easter (in rabbit form, of course) but I like it better when it has its original look.

xx