St. Nicholas Day 2026: the saint, the shoes and Santa Claus
Who Nicholas of Myra really was, how children keep his day from Amsterdam to Kyiv, and how a bishop who gave in secret became Santa Claus.
The MySavior teamUpdated · 8 min read
He calmed the storm to a whisper, and the waves of the sea were hushed.
Psalm 107:29 · BSB
Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them! For the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
From Mark 10:14 · BSB
St. Nicholas Day is the feast of Saint Nicholas of Myra, a fourth-century bishop in what is now southern Turkey, kept on December 6, the traditional date of his death. In 2026 it falls on Sunday, December 6, 2026, and in much of Europe children set out a shoe or a boot the night before and wake to find it filled.
Behind the chocolate and the tangerines stands a real man we know little about for certain, and a thousand years of stories about him. The difference is worth keeping, because the true part is moving enough on its own.
Below: who Nicholas was, what is history and what is legend, how his day is kept country by country, how he became Santa Claus, and a prayer for December 6, with verses from the Berean Standard Bible.
The man behind the feast
Who Nicholas of Myra was
Demre (ancient Myra), TurkeyThe Church of Saint NicholasNicholas was bishop of Myra, a town in the Roman province of Lycia, today Demre on Turkey’s southern coast. Tradition says he was born in nearby Patara around 270 and died on December 6, around 343. Those dates are traditional: none of his writings survive, and no one who knew him wrote about him.
What we do have is early. In the first half of the fifth century, the emperor Theodosius II ordered a church built for him at Myra, and pilgrims came to his tomb. The church on the site today was rebuilt in the sixth century. It is now a museum, and its walls still carry faded frescoes of his life.
Telling them apart
What is history, and what is legend
Most of what we know of Nicholas comes from a Life written by Michael the Archimandrite in the early ninth century, about five hundred years after he died. It draws on older material, but it is a saint’s life, not a court record. The best-loved story comes from it: a ruined father who could not give his three daughters a dowry, and a bishop who threw a bag of gold through their window at night, three times, then asked the father to tell no one.
Some scenes are much later. Nicholas striking the heretic Arius at the Council of Nicaea in 325 is first recorded in the fourteenth century, and Nicholas appears on only some of the early lists of the bishops who attended. So: a real bishop, remembered for giving in secret, wrapped in affectionate legend.
The verse behind his gifts
Matthew 6:3–4
But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Matthew 6:3–4 · BSB
The dowry story is this verse acted out. Nicholas did not give in public or wait to be thanked; he came at night and asked to stay unnamed. That is why the St. Nicholas custom is a gift that simply appears, with no giver beside it.
A gift nobody can trace back to you is one of the few you can be sure you gave for its own sake.
Patron of sailors
Psalm 107:29
He calmed the storm to a whisper, and the waves of the sea were hushed.
Psalm 107:29 · BSB
Early stories tell of Nicholas calming a storm at sea, and sailors took him as their patron. Psalm 107 sings of sailors who cry out to the Lord in a storm and reach harbor safely.
From Myra to Bari
Why his bones are in Italy
Bari, ItalyBasilica of Saint NicholasIn the spring of 1087, sailors from Bari, in southern Italy, carried off most of his bones from Myra, over the protests of the Greek monks who kept the tomb. They landed in Bari on May 9, 1087, and the city raised a great Romanesque basilica over them, consecrated in 1197. In 1100 Venetians took the fragments left behind.
Bari still celebrates his arrival every May, and the basilica draws Catholic and Orthodox pilgrims alike. Every December 6, a flask is lowered into the tomb to draw off the liquid pilgrims call manna.
How the day is kept
Shoes, boots and stockings, country by country
In the Netherlands, Sinterklaas arrives by steamboat “from Spain” in mid-November. Children set a shoe by the fireplace with a carrot or some hay for his horse, and the big night for presents is pakjesavond, the evening of December 5. In Belgium and the southern Netherlands, children wait for the morning of the 6th.
In Germany, a boot goes outside the door on the night of the 5th, in hope of sweets and not a switch. In Austria and Bavaria, Nicholas comes with Krampus, a horned figure who threatens the naughty with coal and birch rods. Czech and Slovak children meet Mikuláš with an angel and a devil; in Poland, gifts turn up under pillows or in shoes. In Hungary and Ukraine, cleaned boots wait on the windowsill.
The treats are small: tangerines, nuts, spiced biscuits, a chocolate letter. In paintings the dowry is often three balls of gold, and some read the orange in the shoe as one of them.
Patron of children
From Mark 10:14
Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them! For the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
From Mark 10:14 · BSB
Jesus was indignant when his disciples kept children away. A child’s small, expectant shoe is a fair picture of the faith he described: open hands, waiting for a gift nobody earned.
With children, tell the real story along with the sweets: a bishop who gave in secret because he loved God.
Sinterklaas in New York
How Saint Nicholas became Santa Claus
The name Santa Claus comes from the Dutch Sinterklaas, carried to New Amsterdam, later New York, by Dutch settlers. It first appears in an American newspaper in 1773. In 1809 Washington Irving’s satirical History of New York pictured a pipe-smoking Nicholas without his bishop’s robes, much of it Irving’s own joke.
Then came “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” printed without a name in 1823 and later claimed by Clement Clarke Moore, with its sleigh and eight reindeer, and Thomas Nast’s drawings in Harper’s Weekly from 1863. The bishop of Myra became the jolly man of the North Pole, and in America the gifts moved to Christmas Eve. Santa is less a fraud on the saint than a distant, cheerful grandson.
On your iPhone
Keep December 6 in view
St. Nicholas Day is one of the 30 feasts in MySavior’s Christian Countdown. Choose it as the widget’s feast and your Lock Screen counts the days to December 6.
On the day itself, the Saint of the Day widget shows Saint Nicholas on your Home Screen, with a short biography from Wikipedia in the app, and it changes by itself at midnight. The whole December calendar is on this site too.
Sunday, November 8
9:41
Count down to St. Nicholas Day on your Lock ScreenMySavior’s countdown can follow St. Nicholas Day, and its Saint of the Day widget puts a saint or feast on your Home Screen for every day of the year.
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To say on December 6
A prayer for St. Nicholas Day
Lord God, thank you for your servant Nicholas, who gave in secret and cared for the poor, the frightened and the young. Give us his quiet generosity, hands that give without needing to be seen. Watch over every child who wakes to a filled shoe today, and over everyone who has nothing to put in one. Amen.
Say it at breakfast on the 6th, before the chocolate. If you have children, let each one add a name: someone who could use a secret kindness this week.
A small practice for this week
Before December 6, give one gift that cannot be traced back to you. Leave tangerines and chocolate on a neighbor’s doorstep, clear someone’s path of snow before they wake, slip an unsigned note of thanks under a door. Tell no one. Then, on the evening of the 5th, set out the shoes and say the prayer together. That is the whole feast.
Keep the feasts and the saints close
Bible verse and prayer widgets you design yourself, a countdown to the feasts of the year, and a saint for every day.
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Questions
When is St. Nicholas Day 2026?
St. Nicholas Day is Sunday, December 6, 2026. It is always December 6, and in many countries the gifts come on the evening before, Saturday, December 5, 2026. In the Catholic calendar it is an optional memorial. In 2026 December 6 is the Second Sunday of Advent, so the Sunday Mass comes first, but the family customs go ahead as usual. Churches that follow the Julian calendar, such as the Russian and Serbian Orthodox, keep it on December 19. In 2027, it falls on Monday, December 6, 2027.
Was Saint Nicholas a real person?
Yes. Nicholas was a real bishop of Myra, in what is now Turkey, in the fourth century, and a church was built for him there in the first half of the fifth century. Most of the rest, including the three bags of gold, comes from much later writings: legend with a true heart.
Why do children put out shoes on St. Nicholas Day?
It grew out of the stories of Nicholas giving in secret, above all the gold he threw through a poor family’s window at night. In later retellings the gold lands in stockings or shoes left by the fire to dry. No written record traces the custom back that far, but its meaning is plain: a gift that appears with no giver in sight.
Is Santa Claus the same as Saint Nicholas?
Santa Claus grew out of Saint Nicholas. The name comes from the Dutch Sinterklaas, and American writers and artists of the 1800s, from Washington Irving to Thomas Nast, turned the bishop into the jolly figure with a sleigh and reindeer. Nicholas is the real person; Santa is the folklore around him.
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