Advent Day 6; St. Nicholas.

Today is the feast day of St. Nicholas. To all you Nicholi out there; today's your day! Woot! Off of the top of my head I can tell you that the tradition is to put out your shoes and St. Nick will give you candy. In your shoes. After some Wikipedia-ing I found out more about this day. I actually was really curious last month about where in the heck Santa Claus came from; how would I be able to explain to my own children what the deal is with this bearded man? I won't go into the specifics of how a Greek saint is connected to this visage:

but you can do plenty of online sleuthing yourself if you're so inclined; it's actually quite interesting and involves a Sinterklaas that puts all naughty children in a sack and takes them to Spain.
As always, I don't condone Wikipedia as a legitimate source but I love "finding out things" easily. Anyway, St. Nicholas has an interesting story, as many saints do {St. Lucy [who is celebrating her day next Tuesday, btw], for example, had her eyes gouged out with forks and is often depicted holding a set of eyes on a gilded plate; appropriately she is the patron saint of the blind.} but i enjoy the following:
* There was a famine going around the land and a local butcher lured in three little kids to his domicile. He then chopped up the little guys and placed their remains into some barrels to cure for later eating and famine relief. St. Nicholas was visiting the area and figured out the situation. He resurrected the children and this is why kids love St. Nicholas. It's also why he gives them candy in their shoes on this day...because he cares for them.
*Another legend has it that there was a father who was so poor he was going to have to sell out his three daughters {you can guess what that means} because he couldn't afford their dowries. St. Nick felt very sad about this and wanted to help. He decided to give the family financial help but in an effort to spare the father's pride threw three sacks full of gold coins through the windows of their home during the night {does that sound familiar?}.
Can you imagine learning this stuff as a seven or eight {heck, twenty eight!} year old at school? I love saint stories, though. Call it odd but they're so familiar to me, almost to the point of being comforting, though I doubt that the idea of a bloody head presented on a plate {St. John the Baptist} could ever be a...cozy? thought. I also found out a bit about a certain Saint Natalia [sic...it should be Nathalia], though she hails from Russian Orthodox roots which is nowhere near my peoples...aka, I wasn't named after her but she does have a neat history.
Do you have a favorite saint story? Is there a patron saint you look to at certain times {now these I love; who couldn't use a bit of help?! This could be another post soon in the future...}} or one you were named after {and thus get a 2nd birthday since you get to celebrate their saint day as such!}? Anyhow, thinking of Saint Nicholas I hope that you've been nice this year and that you will find candy in your shoes tonight!!!
xoxo, natty ♥