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wonderful titles. The first story involves three young boys, who were on
their way to school in Athens, stopped in the town of Myra to receive
Saint Nicholass blessing. In Myra, the boys stayed at an inn for rest,
where the innkeeper and his wife murdered the three boys, tore their
limbs apart and hid the body pieces in barrels under the house. Saint
Nicholas sensed an evil doing and arrived at the innkeepers house for
an interrogation. The couple ended up repenting to Saint Nicholas their
sins and he forgave them of the crime they committed and resurrected
the three boys. The second story involves three young women that Saint
Nicholas saved from going into prostitution. In this time, it was custom
to offer a large sum of dowry to a man so that he might wed the
daughter. A man in town, however, was too poor to offer any dowry. As
the father started losing hope he planned on selling his daughters into
prostitution. When Saint Nicholas caught wind of this he a bag of gold
into the familys window one night. Eventually, he did this for each
daughter once it was time for the daughters to be wed so that each of
them could find a husband.
So how does this Saint relate to our modernized jolly Santa Claus?
Well, to be blunt, we can thank the Dutch, but many of the qualities and
traditions that Saint Nick had were twisted from country to country as
they made up their own customs. However, the bases of Christmas and
Santa Claus are from Saint Nicks attributes. For example, the bigger
attributes that we have seen carry over would be things like the feast
day of Saint Nicholas. Saint Nicholas was awarded December 6th as feast
day in his honor of all the miracles and generosity he has done. This
holiday mainly represented him as the bringer of gifts because he
would always bring gifts to those who needed it, but surprisingly
enough, Saint Nicholas started the tradition of those who said their
prayers and were good Christians would be rewarded. Here we see our
first example of modern day Santa; if you are good you make the nice
list and get gifts, and if you are bad you make the naughty list and get
nothing but coal. This tradition was, of course, rewarded every year on
the feast day of Saint Nicholas just like every year on December 25th we
celebrate Christmas by giving gifts. Another way we see a similarity is
the bag on Santas back. The bag is supposed to represent Saint
Nicholass first gift giving expedition, when he gave the three women
dowry for a husband. We can thank the Dutch for brining Santa Claus to
the US because they were the ones who brought the traditions of Saint
Nicholas to America when they immigrated to New Amsterdam. The
Dutch started the tradition of cookies and milk, as well as a carrot for
Rudolf. The original way was to leave something sweet out for Saint
Nicholas and leaving hay and a carrot out for his horse when Saint
Nicholas went on his gift giving expeditions so that he would never go
hungry.
In conclusion, Saint Nicholas had many wonderful attributes to
this world. Although our modern day Santa Claus is a little extreme, the
fact that Saint Nicholass small acts of charity and kindness has
continued for centuries is truly an amazing thing. The Saints devout life
to the Lord truly shows in keeping Christ in Christmas. If Santa Claus
has become too commercial, too secularized, perhaps it is because we
have forgotten his historical origin in the beloved Bishop of Myra who
obeyed Christ's command that we help all those who are in need.- Rev.
George Philip Hoy
Work Cited
1. Paulding, James Kirke. Stories of Saint Nicholas. 1st Syracuse University
Press ed. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1995. Print.
6. "St. Nicholas Center ::: Who Is St. Nicholas?" St. Nicholas Center ::: Who Is St.
Nicholas? Web. 15 Dec. 2014. <http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/who-is-stnicholas/>.