St Nicholas - A Saint for Children
St Nicholas is a universally popular saint, a great miracle worker and archetypal superman. Nicholas sorts out the goodies from the baddies and puts the world to rights in the name of God. He is venerated in both East and West, by young and old.
There are many legends about St Nicholas and these provide a wealth of material for children's workers in the church. St Nicholas’ holiness is shown by the close affinity of his life to Christ’s. Like Christ he performs miracles, stills storms, cares for the needy, suffers and dies.
The original Santa Claus
The most famous legend about him tells how he threw three bags of gold into the room of three daughters of an impoverished nobleman, thus saving them from prostitution.
Other versions say that St Nicholas put the money in the girls’ stockings at the end of their beds. This may have given rise to the practice of hanging up stockings at Christmas, to the popularity of chocolate coins and to the custom of putting new coins into stockings.
In many parts of Europe - including Germany, Holland and Austria - St Nicholas visits the home of children near his feast day. Good children receive toys and sweets, naughty ones are given punishments by his companion, whose identity differs from area to area. Children leave their shoes by the fireside before St Nicholas’ Day and find them filled with sweets, fruits and nuts on 4 and 5 December. Dutch immigrants took their traditions to America. The Dutch St Nicholas, Sinterklaas, who was adopted in the New World eventually became the modern Santa Claus.This article was taken from Nicola Currie's book “Festive Allsorts - Ideas for Celebrating the Christian Year” NS/CHP. Nicola Currie is Communications Officer in Worcester Diocese.
distributed by Anglican Communion News Service (ACNS)
