Hey, did you know that today, Dec. 6, is St. Nicholas Day? I didn’t.
Poor St. Nicholas–they’re coming at him from both sides. Christian purists don’t want to hear his name mentioned. Secularists hate and loath him. Nicholas became a saint by saving some girls from prostitution and by saving a few boys from drowning. No wonder they want to ban him.
Nevertheless, he’s still here. Sinter Klaes, Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle.
Yes, I know it has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus Christ, the word made flesh, the Son of God.
Which makes it a mystery to me, why the no-God crowd have conniptions when they see even the printed words, “Santa Claus.”
There must be some holiness to anything that offends atheists. If he makes people who are that bad that angry, St. Nicholas must indeed have some connection to the Kingdom of Heaven.
For St. Nicholas Day in Germany the kids put out a shoe on the window sill or front step and “Santa Claus” fills it with candy or small toys, which I think is a much better role for Santa. The “Christ Child” then brings the family gifts on Christmas Eve. They don’t tend to go as crazy with the gifts as we do either. Christmas is more about family than commercialism. Wish I could celebrate Christmas this way with my kids here, but it is just too hard when everyone else is doing it differently. When they are very little they just don’t understand.
I grew up in a large, close-knit family; but by now almost everybody’s dead and gone. It leaves me wishing I hadn’t been such a dremmeling, college-miseducated fool, who couldn’t appreciate this while he had it.If you ever need to, you can tell your kids I said this. Appreciate your family now, and your family Christmas. The day will come when you’d give anything to have it back.
We really are doing our level best to make a mess of Christmas in this culture, aren’t we?
Hope you didn’t mind my cri de couer.
I thought December 25th, was St. Nicholas Day.
So did I, but I was mistaken.
Supposedly Bishop Nicholas punched Arias during a debate over whether Jesus was God or whether he was simply a created being. With the emperor looking on.
Good ol’ Saint Nick 🙂
Yes–there are in some European churches old stained-glass windows depicting this incident.
I’ve debated a few persons whom I would’ve liked to punch in the nose.