Readers of my book will know that St. Nicholas has a grave in Myrna, Turkey, a tomb in Kilkenny, Ireland, and shrines in Bari and Venice, Italy — each of the Italian shrines containing half of his skeleton. He also has a sacred cave near Bethlehem and an island named after him with ever-sharp tools. I assume there are suitable festivities going on in all those places right now, December 6th, his feast day. Among his miracles are saving ships from sotrms nad raising three boys who had been mummified or pickled (depending on the story) from the dead.
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You probably already know this, but on the off-chance that you don’t:
St. Nicholas is still celebrated in at least the Netherlands and Belgium. It is basically a children’s feast with presents similar to Santa Claus in the rest of the world. Half November St. Nicholas supposedly comes by steam ship from Spain (I guess there is some interesting fact hidden in this custom), and from that time on kids can put their shoes in front of the chimney hoping for a small present in the morning; again very similar to Santa’s stocking tradition. The feast culminates in the main event at St. Nicholas’ eve (ie. the 5th of December) where the good man leaves a whole sack of presents.
Families with (small) kids tend to celebrate St. Nicholas over Santa Claus, but when the kids grow older, it is usually more convenient to have the celebrations around X-mas, when the family is together.
Well I didn’t know about the steam ship! My kid went a school that celebrated a lot of European traditions, including leaving a shoe out for St. Nicholas to fill with a tangerine and various small toys or baubles. They leave their shoes outside the classroom door and visits during the day.