6th of December - St Nicholas' Day
6th of December is the 340th day of the year
St Nicholas' Day:
The transformation of St Nicholas, an Abbot and Bishop in the Turkish city of Myra in the 4th century, into the Santa Claus of contemporary times, required a rather complex journey. He was famed for his piety and for miraculous acts where he helped people in grave distress, those saved including sailors, young girls, murdered children, and prisoners. He became therefore the patron saint of many groups: more than 300 churches in this country are dedicated to him, with many of them near the coast because of his importance to seafarers. Our Santa Claus, a corruption of Saint Nicholas or Nicklaus, is largely a 19th century creation expanded on in the 20th. The ground rules were set by New York cleric Clement Moore’s poem The Night Before Christmas (leaning on Dutch folk-tales), published in 1822, card designers and even ads for Coca Cola later playing a part in fixing for instance the details of his garb.
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