Saint Nicholas as an Alternative to Santa Claus

Thanks so much for the great discussion and comments on Why We Say No to Santa Claus. For those who also omit Santa from Christmas, it's wonderful to know we are not alone. I had intended to finish this post before the weekend, but just didn't get to it.

December 6th is St. Nicholas Day, although we will be including the story of Saint Nick as part of our Christmas Day, he does have his very own day. There is lots of great info out there on the web. Here is a quick view how we plan to have Saint Nicholas stand in for Santa Claus.

Nicholas was an early Christian who had received a great inheritance and used it to help others. There was a poor man with three daughters who did not have enough money for their dowries, and therefore they were destined to be sold into slavery since no man would marry without receiving a dowry for taking a bride. Nicholas anonymously gave three bags of gold for the daughters' dowries.

The legend has it that he threw the bags of gold in through an open window. However, some stories say he threw them in through the chimney. When families began observing the Feast of Saint Nicholas, they would tell their children that Saint Nicholas would bring the gifts of money through the chimney, and in the process get cinders on his clothes. He was then called "Sinterklass" in northern European countries.

In the "New World," trying to break from "old world" customs and traditions, the person of Santa Claus was born and associated with December 25th instead of December 6th.

As Ladybug gets older, we will tell her the story of Saint Nicholas, of his good deeds of helping other people, and why we need to give to others. We will share with her that Santa Claus is based on the real person of Saint Nicholas, but that he is not real. We will also stress the importance of having fun and playing make-believe, and that if someone else wants to believe that Santa Claus is real, it's okay, and that we are not to spoil their fun.

I am looking for good children's books about Saint Nicholas, so if you have any recommendations, please let me know! This year's newest VeggieTale DVD is about Saint Nicholas and I have only seen snippets of it. But I am a big fan of VeggieTales and the messages that they share.

We will still do Christmas presents and Christmas stockings (my mom asked about that). But we will not be pretending that some magical person/elf snuck into our house while we were sleeping. Ladybug will know that Mama and Daddy bought the presents for her. We will most likely keep it to three presents, as I mentioned in a post last week. Another blogger (can't remember who, sorry!) wrote that they do put out stocking for Saint Nicholas and that "he" fills them with coins. We might incorporate that in future years.

When well-meaning people ask if she is ready for Santa Claus, for now we just smile and nod. If they are a close friend, family member or someone from church, we might share that we don't have Santa at our house. We won't go out of our way to avoid Santa Claus. We won't be offended if someone mentions him in our presence.

One reason I want to share all of this here is so that close friends and family who might happen to read my blog will understand how we will be celebrating Christmas. I mentioned last week all the reasons why we don't do Santa Claus. We're pretty firm on those.

Hubby and I really do enjoy making "new" traditions for our little family. That's part of being a family and celebrating the holidays. We don't do things exactly the way they were when we grew up, but we incorporate some of our favorite traditions and include new ones as they fit in with our philosophy of parenting and with our Christian faith. We look forward to teaching Ladybug about giving and receiving, about helping others, and that Christmas is, most importantly, about Jesus.


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