December 5, 2007

• St. Nicholas Day

  Tomorrow, December 6th, is the Roman Catholic feast day of St. Nicholas, who most people know better as Santa Claus.  Tonight, St. Nicholas Eve, even as I write this, children all over Europe–and American cities with a strong German heritage–are putting out a shoe or a sock (stocking?) in the hope that St. Nicholas will leave them a gift or two.  And, in families where that custom is observed, I think he probably will.  Something just tells me that.

  
  

  St. Nicholas was never officially canonized (he lived in the 3rd Century, AD, long before the Church had official canonizations), and, by some accounts, he was actually declared the patron saint of New York City back when that place was known as New Amsterdam (his shrine then, as today, was in a Macy’s window).  Here’s an icon of what the old guy looked like (uh, maybe):

  
  

  

  
  

  Where’s the white beard?  Where’s the black pipe?  Ironically, there probably was a Mrs. St. Nicholas in real life, but she doesn’t get much play in the icons.  If you count the pictures around St. Nicholas’ face, it looks like there were eight dwarfs, not seven.  Oh, wait.  Maybe I got the stories mixed up.  (When I was a kid, I always assumed Snow White’s seven dwarfs did double duty at the North Pole with Santa Claus, but I now realize I was very wrong. [Joke: A man rear-ends a car because he wasn't paying attention.  He gets out, and the other man gets out.  The other man is a dwarf.  The man says to the dwarf, "Are you okay?"  The dwarf says, "Yeah, but I'm not happy."  The man says, "Oh, no?  Which one are you?"  Ba-da-bing!])

  
  

  When our kids were growing up, I resented the hell out of Santa Claus.  He and his friend didn’t put together, after the kids had gone to bed on Christmas Eve, a complete plywood kitchen after he and the friend had consumed the better part of a bottle of Crown Royal .  He and his friend (and their wives) didn’t put together a complete swing set in the freezing cold garage after a fifth of Jack Daniels had gone down.  The wives put together the glider, and the guys did the rest.  The glider fell apart in two weeks.  The wives obviously hadn’t been drinking enough.

  
  

  But who got the credit for all of that?  Not Daddy and Uncle Larry.  Absolutely not.  Santa Claus got the credit.  He brought all of that.  On his sleigh.

  
  

  So, am I crusading against Santa Claus with my granddaughter, Liza?  Of course not.  Today a friend asked me if we had gotten Liza any presents for Christmas.  I said we had gotten her one or two.  Or thirty.  He laughed hard.

  
  

  But back to St. Nicholas.  There aren’t many saints that have affected the culture as much as he has.  St. Valentine has, maybe, but his feast day isn’t on the Catholic calendar anymore.  Jolly Ole St. Nick is right there for tomorrow, though.  Wikipedia has an interesting article about St. Nicholas at this link: click here.

  
  

  ED   

  • 10:59 pm
  • 2 Comments