Does you celebrate St. Nick's day?

[belladonna]

We do! I'm off to the dollar store in just a bit to pick up some random treats to stuff in my three boys' shoes tonight. I think it's fun.

I'm just curious how widespread this is. For the record, I grew up Catholic in the Midwest in a home heavily influenced by Polish traditions. If you celebrate the day, what is your family history?

[ZipperJJ]

My mom and aunt just went to a Slovak Christmas mass and dinner, and they did some stuff with St. Nick. Although she grew up Slovak and Catholic in Cleveland, she'd never heard of it before.

I'd heard of it but never celebrated it.

Anyway, I think she is going to start having my brother leave my niece's shoes out, just for fun.

[gracer]

I grew up in Holland, where "Sinterklaas" is really big. I love it! Even here in the UK I have to do something.

This morning my flatmates had put out a shoe with biscuits & a tiny present for me, it was so exciting! I have bought chocolate letters for all of them, so I will go ask the neighbours to bang on our door and leave them as a surprise. Never to old for that one :D

In Holland the traditional celebration is VERY elaborate. First the "good holy man" arrives on a steam boot with all his Piets in a huge televised event. Then the kids get to leave out a shoe every night until the 5th and he will put some biscuits in (the biscuits represent the money he used to hand out to the poor). You have to sing the traditional songs when you leave out your shoe, and maybe leave a carrot out for the horse. Then on the 5th he leaves a big burlap sack of presents, lots of little biscuits and the first letter of your name in chocolate!

Adults have their own separate tradition: they do a special sort of secret santa. Besides just buying the person a present, you also have to make them a "fake present" in which you hide the real present. You write an elaborate poem to go alongside the fake present, which you sign "Sint & Piet". This fake present and poem are intended to kindly make fun of the person. Example: my dad once made me a huge bull horn out of paper mache, which he connected to a rape alarm, so if you pressed the button it started screaming. This was accompanied by a poem about my furious & opinionated rants :)

Ow now I'm so sad I'm not in Holland with friends and family! But I can't wait to see my flatmates faces when they get their chocolate letters.

[antonio107]

It was my dad's "name day," and so we sorta celebrated it like that, in true Papist fashion. :)

[Malleus, Incus, Stapes!]

Does St. Nick's = Christmas? Or did the holiday and the guy just get conflated together?

[belladonna]

In Holland the traditional celebration is VERY elaborate. First the "good holy man" arrives on a steam boot with all his Piets in a huge televised event. Then the kids get to leave out a shoe every night until the 5th and he will put some biscuits in (the biscuits represent the money he used to hand out to the poor). You have to sing the traditional songs when you leave out your shoe, and maybe leave a carrot out for the horse. Then on the 5th he leaves a big burlap sack of presents, lots of little biscuits and the first letter of your name in chocolate!


This is so interesting, I had no idea it was so big there. Is Christmas itself gift-heavy in Holland too, or do most gifts get given on St. Nick's day?

[FrancisCastle]

I'm in Wisconsin and we grew up with it here. My ex-husband is originally from South Carolina and never heard of it until his family moved up here. We fill the kids' stockings with candy and get them one small gift, usually a book or a puzzle.

[belladonna]

Does St. Nick's = Christmas? Or did the holiday and the guy just get conflated together?
St. Nick was a man who, according to the stories, was born about A.D. 270, became a bishop as a young boy and was known for his generosity and kindness. Various acts attributed to him involve rescuing girls from prostitution and/or slavery by providing dowries, healing a burned child, and multiplying a load of grain during famine. He was a very popular saint, and his death on Dec. 6 was marked by the exchange of small gifts. This may have been influenced by a bit of melding with the pagan god Odin, who dashed through the sky with his long white beard.

Due mainly to anti-Catholic attitudes and discomfort with "worshipping" saints, St. Nicholas was transformed into "Father Christmas" or "Pere Noel" or Santa Claus over the years. His image as a red-suited fat guy didn't come about until "The Night before Christmas" was published, and it was cemented by the drawings by Thomas Nast.

[kenobi 65]

I'd never heard of it (at least, not as being a holiday for which anyone actually did anything) until I was about 8 or 9 years old, at which point my sister and I realized that there were kids in our school who were all excited about getting an "early Christmas present" (that seemed to be the extent of the observance). I remember we got rather upset about being "left out" in this, and my parents getting us some little gifts that evening (and, in retrospect, they undoubtedly felt rather annoyed about the whole thing).

[Kiyoshi]

I've never heard of St Nicholas's Day. If I hadn't read this thread and the Wikipedia article, I would have assumed it was an alternative name for Christmas Day. I've never heard of leaving presents in shoes, either.

(Non-religious upbringing, in the UK)

[Cunctator]

I've never celebrated 6 December as a gift-giving holiday, but I am singing at a mass this evening for the feast of St Nicholas. One of the priests at our parish is from the Netherlands, so he wanted to make today special. We won't be singing anything too fancy though, because we're also singing for Immaculate Conception on Thursday night.

[Capt. Ridley's Shooting Party]

I've just got back from my Dutch coworkers St. Nicholas Day celebratory meal. To be honest, until he e-mailed me about it last week, I'd never heard of the day before.

[Just Ed]

Odd. I've never heard of it, but my birthday is December 6. I wonder that I never came across the concept before . . .

[gracer]

This is so interesting, I had no idea it was so big there. Is Christmas itself gift-heavy in Holland too, or do most gifts get given on St. Nick's day?

Christmas was traditionally less about gifts, more about religion. That's changing now, though for many families Christmas doesn't involve a Santa, just family gifts. I would say that among peers, both are equally about gifts and being with friends and family now and not at all about religion.

I just surprised my flatmates, they were all thrilled :D It was sooo much fun! Then we made a batch of the little biscuits and we put them in custard instead, so we had a proper mixed nationalities dish. And they all tried to sing the proper songs.

[gracer]

I've just got back from my Dutch coworkers St. Nicholas Day celebratory meal. To be honest, until he e-mailed me about it last week, I'd never heard of the day before.

There isn't really a specific meal associated with it, what did you have? Did you do any gifts or hear any songs?

We used to have traditional Dutch pea soup with smoked sausage, but that was just because my mum always tried hard to be super Dutch about things and she couldn't fathom not having a special meal to go with a tradition! They say the pea soup has to look like horse poo, so that was mum's aim :)

[Rhiannon8404]

It's the same as my Dad's birthday. We celebrated that instead. But I knew friends who did celebrate St. Nicholas Day.

[elfkin477]

I know what it is (we did a unit about Christmas traditions around the world in late elementary school...at an age when they figure the still-believes-in-Santa contingency was vanishingly small), but the Dutch population here is just barely above 0% so I don't know anyone who celebrates it.

[Farmer Jane]

The only Catholic tradition I've celebrated (St. Pat's not counting) was St. Joe's. Lots of beer. Red t shirts. A parade. Czech food. <Shrug> I'm from Iowa.

[JWT Kottekoe]

You bet, raised Catholic in the midwest, with German Catholic heritage. We celebrate it every Dec. 6, with shoes by the fireplace. When I was a child we usually got candy. Thankfully, I never got a lump of coal. My wife's family got substantial presents, like Christmas, but usually only one present and some candy. That's what our kids get now.

[Katriona]

Apparently we celebrated a version of it when I was a kid, from a tradition in my mom's family (mostly Swedish/German/Scottish, FWIW). Looking back, it seems like it was kind of a cross between the Advent countdown and St. Nick.

Every night leading up to Christmas Eve, we'd put our shoes by the door and in the morning we'd find candy in them (if we'd been good, or notes to do better if we hadn't).

The "elf" who left the candy was known as the Biltz Man, but I have no idea where it came from. Nobody else I've mentioned this to has ever heard of Mr. Biltz.

[hellpaso]

Never heard of it in my life. (raised in the South by protestants who fortunately were unable to indoctrinate me into their evil path). I do celebrate "christmas", though--I look upon it as a fabulous celebration of capitalism and greed--love it!

[limegreen]

Yes -- and I teach a German class, so every year we make little paper shoes to leave out. I try to sneak into school and fill them up with chocolate and treats. And switches. These are high school kids, and they are so excited with the little bits of goodies that it cracks me up.

[Sattua]

Dutch on one side of the family and German on the other, but apparently too far removed to remember this holiday. I first heard about it some time in high school.

[rocking chair]

orthodox, st. nick's day is on dec. 19th for us.

decorated on beethoven's birthday (dec. 16) then stockings would be filled and ready to be emptied on dec. 19th. there would always be an apple, orange, and nuts in the toe section.

now the cats and i have treats and stockings on the 19th.

[Lust4Life]

English, never heard of it before, sounds great !

Wasn't he supposed to be Turkish ?
Or is that another bloke of the same name ?

[Butterscotch]

I work in a Catholic School and we celebrate there. On the morning of the 6th all the students leave a shoe in the corridor, outside the classrooms. St Nicholas comes along (disguised as volunteers from the Parents Organisation!) and leaves sweets in every shoe. The kids absolutely love it!

[Lust4Life]

I work in a Catholic School and we celebrate there. On the morning of the 6th all the students leave a shoe in the corridor, outside the classrooms. St Nicholas comes along (disguised as volunteers from the Parents Organisation!) and leaves sweets in every shoe. The kids absolutely love it!

I've always bee worried about the Socks gang turning up, and being total bastards.

[polar bear]

As a Dutchman, this is off course celebrated. To give you an idea of how big this is, our daily traffic jams started a few hours earlier because of parents going home early and many public buildings and schools closed early.

The real St. Nick was from Turkey yes, but our gift bringing bishop is from Madrid and arrives by steamboat (don't ask how, he just does).

[salinqmind]

I was recently reading about an event called the Klausjagen, held after dark in a town in Switzerland on St. Nick's Eve. It involves a parade of men cracking loud whips, followed by people wearing 6 ft. tall paper miters ( pope hats) lit from within by candles, St. Nick himself accompanied by four dark robed and hooded attendants, a band, a cowbell band, and a horn band...sounds like quite a hoot! Pre-Christian in origin, but the church stuck St. Nicholas in there to make it less pagan, more Christian.

[FriarTed]

I was recently reading about an event called the Klausjagen, held after dark in a town in Switzerland on St. Nick's Eve. It involves a parade of men cracking loud whips, followed by people wearing 6 ft. tall paper miters ( pope hats) lit from within by candles, St. Nick himself accompanied by four dark robed and hooded attendants, a band, a cowbell band, and a horn band...sounds like quite a hoot! Pre-Christian in origin, but the church stuck St. Nicholas in there to make it less pagan, more Christian.

Whose St. Nick celebrations include Schvartze Piet (sp?), the "Six to eight black men" &/or Krampus the Demon?

[salinqmind]

Maybe David Sedaris? He did, after all, write a story about the mysterious "Six To Eight Black Men" who accompany Sinterklaas...