Since today is the feast
day of Saint Nicholas, let’s talk about him a bit.
It’s actually hard to
see past the rotund Jolly Old Saint Nick that we’ve had in our minds ever since
C. Clement Moore’s “A Visit from Saint Nicholas”, and the Coca Cola adverts
from the 40s. The historic Saint Nicholas was a third-century bishop of Myra in
Asia Minor (now in Turkey). Nicholas was reputed to have performed a number of
miracles, including restoring three murdered and dismembered boys to life, and
secretly tossing purses of gold through the window of a poor man who couldn’t
afford dowries for his three daughters and was about to sell them into
prostitution. He’s also known for bargaining with sailors for a portion of
their shipment of grain (needed for a time of famine)—they were reluctant to
give away any part of their consignment, but he promised they wouldn’t lose by
helping those in need. When they arrived at their destination, the weight of
their shipment was exactly what it had been before they met Nicholas, and the
wheat given him was enough to last Myra for two years.
Nicholas is the patron
of sailors, fishermen and merchants (tied to that last miracle); children,
brewers and coopers (the dismembered boys had been put into a barrel to be
brined); pharmacists, archers and pawnbrokers; broadcasters and the falsely
accused (this would be a single group these days); and repentant thieves. He
also is patron of Russia, Greece, Liverpool, Moscow, Amsterdam and Aberdeen
(among other places).
We of course associate
him with gift giving these days. Some traditions receive presents on Saint
Nicholas Day, rather than Christmas, but this largesse does not come without a
down side. The good saint is typically accompanied by a demon—called Krampus in
some places and Zwarte Piet in others—who hands out punishment to the bad
children, while the saint gives the goodies.
As Santa Claus (morphed from
the Dutch Sinterklaas—Saint Nicholas), he’s the embodiment of our contemporary
Christmas machine: we tell kids he has a toy workshop at the North Pole, staffed
by elves and with transportation courtesy of reindeer. He holds court at every
mall and most department stores in the country, and presides over countless
holiday parties where people overindulge in pretty much everything.
In Québec last Sunday I
came across a different iteration of him. This guy was parked on a throne in a street
with his two dogs and a basket in front full of Canadian five-dollar bills:
Saint Nick was open for photo ops:
An hour or two later I
happened by again and watched him head home, where I’m thinking he banked a
haul that was well into three figures.
It’s hard to find music
about Saint Nicholas—Google it and you get 3,478,622 hits on “Jolly Old Saint
Nicholas.” No; just no.
What I’m going with is
the Dutch song “Sinterklaas Kapoentj”, which featured in one of my favorite
Christmas movies. I vastly prefer Miracle
on 34th Street over It’s a
Wonderful Life, and this is one of the seminal scenes:
If that’s not enough,
here’s a different version, by a trio of Dutch puppets; a bird, a mole and what
looks like a worm:
1 comment:
You didn't warn me about the Dutch girl; I had forgotten the scene, had assumed I didn't need to see the movie again every year, and I cried.
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