Today
is Saint Nicholas Day, the day when we commemorate the 4th-Century
bishop of Myra, one of the participants of the Council of Nicaea. This is
actually the day he died, which makes
a bit of a change for celebrations.
(Although
his death is kind of a thing; at least his corpse was. Because about 600 years
after he died, Italian merchants robbed his grave in Myra and took his body to
Bari. I’m not touching the issues around what possesses a group of people to do
that kind of stuff and expect to remain in God’s favor.)
He’s
the patron of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children,
brewers, pawnbrokers and students. I’m trying to think of what commonalities connect
those groups, but without luck.
We
of course have conflated Saint Nicholas with major gift giving (which might
explain the children, merchants and pawnbrokers; possibly the repentant
thieves, too), via the Dutch version of his name, Sinterklaas. And today is the day (instead of the 25th) when
children in a number of countries get their gifts (if they’ve been good; if they’ve
been naughty, they get coal or switches, depending on the local custom).
So
it seems appropriate to me that today’s piece of music focus on Santa Claus,
gifts and varying degrees of naughtiness. And who better to sing “Santa Baby”
than Eartha Kitt?
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