St. Nicholas: A Closer Look at Christmas

Excellant narrative explaining how we got to our current perspectives, names, practices for celebrating Christmas but written with a healthy respect for Christian worldview. Will help parents deal with children's questions about Santa Claus (historical derivation and current perspective) and guidance about what we should tell our children.

This book is an interesting and superbly done overview of the history of Santa Claus and how he came to be. I have used the material over the years in teaching history and French classes, but never found the story all under one easy cover before. At ten dollars, it is an especially good buy as a gift or for one's own use. Enjoy reading and learning.

Are you a parent torn between the virtue and obligation of truth telling to your children on one hand and indulging them with Santa Claus on the other? Are you a cynical teen that just rolls his/her eyes toward the sky at just the mention of Santa Claus? Are you a child confused and wondering if Santa Claus really exists? If you fall into any of the above categories, then this book is for you. You need not look any further than this book to be proven to that yes, there was and is a Santa Claus. Your days of confusion and disillusionment are finally over. Complete with fascinating artwork, historical detail, collectibles and postcards, this book delves deep into the mystery and magic of St. Nicholas who was a young man with kindly attributes toward humanity, especially young children. He was bishop of Myra, in a region of Asia Minor in what is now Turkey. He was a religious man as well as a giving man, such that the Catholic Church raised him to the alter and bestowed sainthood upon him. He received a good-sized inheritence, but shared with less fortunate folks. Eventually he became, at a very young age, a bishop of the Christian Church; the Roman and Byzantine Catholic, the Orthodox, as well as traditional Protestant churches have great honor and respect for this man. December 6 is the day designated for him by the Catholic and Orthodox churches as a feastday in his honor. I am partly of Dutch origin, and I have always been fascinated with the stories of my mother who grew up with the Saint Nicholas tradition in Holland as a child. In Europe, unlike here in the States, the celebration of St. Nicholas typically was never mixed in with Christmas. In my mother's country, Dutch children typically receive their gifts from "Santa Claus" on Saint Nicholas Eve (December 5) and then the next day, children are off from school. Saint Nicholas, then, is seen in the streets (not in shopping malls) on a white horse accompanied by his assistant, Black Peter, who is a young page of Moorish descent. (In Austria, St. Nicholas's assistant is a young devil by the name of Krampus). Dutch children, on Saint Nicholas Eve, traditionally would place wooden shoes in front of the fireplace, and place some hay and carrots in them for Saint Nicholas's horse. Any child who's been naughty or needed improvement in some area, simply got a note from Saint Nicholas to do better, whether in behavior, school work, study habits, obedience to parents, etc. Christmas, however, is celebrated as a separate holiday, and traditionally has been considered a very holy feast, unlike the commercialistic venture it has become to a large degree in America. In Holland, gift giving normally is never done on Christmas but on Saint Nicholas. In Catholic countries, as well as among Catholics and traditional Protestants in general, Christmas begins, not ends, on December 25th and ends January 6th (Epiphany) in accordance with traditional liturgical norms. Usually when Americans