Today, I’m thankful for the great gift-giver of all – the one we all try to emulate during this holiday season.
OK, for you to understand what I’m getting at, I need to take a step back and explain a little bit about the concept of name days and why today is the day we celebrate St. Nick.
I was raised in a very Greek family. Growing up Greek comes with many wonderful attributes. For starters, Greek food is zesty, delicious, and plentiful. Additionally, Greek people are fervently proud of their heritage. Many Greeks raise their families with a strong respect of Hellenistic history, culture, and community, ultimately conjuring up a sense of uniqueness for many Greek Americans. And, then, finally, there are the name days.
A name day is a tradition celebrated by Orthodox and Catholic individuals in certain countries, including many in Europe – Greece, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and most Scandinavian and Eastern European countries – and Latin America – Uruguay and Argentina. Essentially, it involves celebrating a particular day in the year that is associated with one’s given name. This tradition, which traces back to the Middle Ages, stems from the Christian calendar of saints, with individuals celebrating their name day at the same time that the Church celebrates a particular saint’s feast day. In the Greek Orthodox tradition, this is usually the day a saint has died, so this event serves as a commemoration of their life spent in service of a religious pursuit or a theological calling. I have always loved name days because they are in many ways equivalent to having a second birthday. The Greeks celebrate the day with much fanfare and with all the pleasantries of a birthday but with one notable exception: there is no cake. That aside, it is a pretty awesome event because everyone visits you, they celebrate you with a huge feast, and then, best of all for a kid, they give you loads of presents. The best present is cold hard cash, or, as some of my Greek friends would refer to it, pocket money. I like to think they called it that because you often needed to accept the cash very quickly before your parents would notice, intercede, and demand that the amount was simply too much. Parents would argue that it was not possible for you to accept that much cash from your Uncle Gus or Aunt Aphrodite; they would usually then try to make you give it back. However, if you were smart and learned to quickly place this money in your pocket, none of the awkwardness that comes with your being told to give it back would ever ensue. (Invariably, the adult gift givers would refuse to accept its return and, in the end, you still ended up with the money). It’s basically Greek theater, and the Greeks have a lot of practice in this area, dating back over 2,500 years to the days of Euripides, Sophocles, and Aristophanes.
So, with that backdrop, you should all know that today, December 6, is the name day for all individuals named Nicholas, Nick, or any other related version (Niki, Nicole, Nicola, etc.). St. Nicholas Day is a holiday celebrated by many cultures besides the Greeks. The day also honors the Christian bishop Nicholas of Myra. Surprising as it may seem, we all know about the legend of this wonderful saint, but perhaps not in its original context. So, let me take a moment to place it in its proper context.
Born sometime around 280 AD in Patara, which is now part of Turkey, St. Nicholas grew up an orphan, having lost both parents early in his life. His parents were relatively wealthy at the time of their passing, and their inheritance was passed on to Nicholas. However, instead of choosing to live a life of luxury, Nicholas was extremely devout and opted to give away his inheritance to the needy, the poor, and the suffering. There are many legendary stories of how Nicholas helped others, but one that involves three poor sisters has gained much fame. Nicholas learned that the parents of three young women lacked the means to provide them a dowry for marriage, an important custom at those times, so Nicholas snuck secretly into their house late at night on three separate occasions and left a bag of silver coins inside their home. Each time, the money was found and used to help generate a dowry for the daughters. As luck might have it, Nicholas was caught by the father on the third occasion, at which point the home owner, so touched by the gesture, got down on his knees and thanked him profusely for his kindness. His humble existence and renowned generosity in support of the impoverished earned Nicholas an appointment to bishop in the town of Myra, now known as Demre,in Turkey. He died on this day (Dec 6) in the year 343 AD. However, his legacy lived on, and eventually the Church consecrated him as a saintfor his miracles of philanthropy.
The story of St. Nicholas’s gift-giving became very popular throughout many parts of Europe, and although many western European countries turned away from celebrating saints during the Protestant reformation, The Netherlands held on to this tradition. Dutch children celebrated the occasion by putting their shoes outside their homes the night of December 5. Amazingly, the next day, the children would discover them filled with gifts left by St. Nicholas, or as they referred to him in Dutch, “Sinterklass”. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Dutch colonists brought this tradition to the United States, and particularly to Dutch Pennsylvania; as a result, the annual gift-giving ritual became very popular in the United States. After many transformations, Sinterklaas came to be known as ‘Santa Claus’ and the tradition of gift giving on the Christmas holiday went viral. Over time, the celebration got moved back to December 25 to correspond with the end of the year holiday season. All that said, the Greeks, the Dutch, and many others celebrate December 6 as the name day for St. Nicholas, the greatest gift-giver of all.
So, on this day we celebrate St. Nicholas of Myra, let’s take a moment to honor this jolly soul who left behind the incredible legacy of philanthropy and the power of 'paying it forward.' I plan to celebrate my name day with a nice family take-out dinner, for which I’m sure I’ll be picking up the tab. And, incidentally, that’s OK too, because St. Nick would ultimately agree that 'it is often better to give than to receive.'
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