Secret Gifts from Saint Nicholas

My yearly calendar has forgotten to mention many of the wonderful festivities celebrated both here and abroad in December. December 6^th, the Feast Day of Saint Nicholas, is one example of a December remembrance omitted from the blocks of the calendar.

St. Nicholas was born in the Greek village of Patara in Lycia, now known as Antalya province, Turkey. His well to do parents died when he was young, leaving Nicholas quite a bit of money. He is believed to be the patron saint of children and sailors as well as many cities around the world including New York. "In 1809, the New-York Historical Society convened and named Sancte Claus the patron saint of Nieuw Amsterdam, the Dutch name for New York." (1)

Throughout his lifetime Nicholas had a reputation for using his inheritance to help those less fortunate by way of secret gifts. The most well known story may explain where the custom of hanging stockings by the fireplace originated. Upon hearing of a poor man who could not afford a proper dowry for his three daughters, Nicholas, under the cover of darkness, secretly dropped a bag of gold down the chimney. The bag fell into a stocking which had been hung by the fire to dry.

Feast day celebrations for St. Nicholas are as varied as the names he goes by - Sinter Klaas in Holland, Pere Noel in France, or St. Nicholas as he is known in the United States and Luxemburg.

Wearing a bishop's miter and red and white bishop robes and carrying his trademark gold staff, St. Nicholas or Sinter Klaas as he is known locally, makes landfall each year in Amsterdam on a steamer from Spain with his companion Zwarte Piet on the eve of his feast day to the clamor of ringing bells, gun salutes and thousands of screaming youngsters.

According to Dorothy Gladys Spicer's book, 46 Days of Christmas, feast day celebrations for the saint are two-fold in Holland. First in the early evening hours on December 5^th, Zwarte Piet's black-gloved hand opens the door a crack and tosses a handful of pepernotens (hard, round spice cakes) across the floor. After snatching up the spice cakes the children must then account for their good or in some cases naughty behavior that year.