One of my fondest memories of Christmas time as a kid was St. Nicholas Day.  At school we would put our shoes out in the hallway right after lunch and at the end of the day, we would retrieve our shoes with a small candy cane inside from St. Nick.  At home we would leave one our shoes outside our bedroom door to come home from school and find it full of small treasures. December 6th is St. Nicholas Day, so I made these cookies to celebrate.

The inspiration for these cookies came from this stamp that I purchased a few years back.  I stamped it on a piece of cardstock and then cut it out to use as my template for cutting out the cookies.  I started out by piping and flooding the red sections of St. Nicks coat and hat, allowing it to dry overnight.  The next day, I added the white fur around his hat, the bottom of the coat and arm.  I filled in the section for his bag with brown icing.  Next I added his face and beard.  While the white icing for his beard was still wet, I added some gray.  I also piped on his green mitten and yellow bell.  For the details on his coat, I piped the green fist then the white.  With the white triangle sections still wet, I placed small heart sprinkles.  To finished it up, I took a black food coloring marker and added definition around the fur of the hat and arm.  I also added stitching just above the decoration on his coat.  The cane was the last thing on piped on.