Those with longer memories than mine might recall we celebrated St. Nicholas Day on Dec. 6, 2019. Let’s continue those festivities as 2020 draws close to an end.

The original Saint Nicholas was born in Greece around 280 A.D. He became bishop of Myra, a small Roman town in modern Turkey. Nicholas was neither fat nor jolly but developed a reputation as a fiery, wiry, and defiant defender of church doctrine during the Great Persecution in 303 when Bibles were burned and priests made to renounce Christianity or face execution.

Defying these edicts Nicholas was imprisoned for many years before the Roman emperor Constantine ended Christian persecution in 313. Associated with many miracles Nicholas’s fame lived long after his death. Reverence for him continues to this day independent of his Christmas connection.

Nicholas became known as a patron of children and magical gift bringer because of two great stories from his life.

In the better-known tale, three young girls are saved from a life of prostitution when young Bishop Nicholas secretly delivers three bags of gold to their indebted father which he can then use as their dowries.

The other story, not so well known now but enormously popular in the Middle Ages, has Nicholas entering an inn whose keeper has just murdered three boys and pickled their dismembered bodies in basement barrels. The bishop immediately sensed the crime and resurrected the victims, one of the things that made him the Patron Saint of children. (And I hope has no connection to pickle ornaments which may hang now on some Christmas trees.)

For several hundred years, from about 1200 to 1500, St. Nicholas was the unchallenged bringer of gifts and the toast of celebrations centered around his feast day, The Protestant Reformation caused saints like Nicholas to fall out of favor during the 1500s. Of course that presented a problem: who’s going to bring the gifts?

Quoting now Gerry Bowler’s “Santa Claus: A Biography:” “that job fell to baby Jesus, and the date was moved to December 25. But the infant’s carrying capacity is very limited, and he’s not very scary either so the Christ child was often given a scary helper to do the lugging of presents and the threatening of kids that doesn’t seem appropriate coming from the baby Jesus.

“Some of these scary Germanic figures were based on Nicholas, no longer as a saint but as a threatening sidekick like Ru-klaus (Rough Nicholas), Aschenklas (Ashy Nicholas) and Pelznickel (Furry Nicholas). These figures expected good behavior or forced children to suffer consequences like whippings and kidnappings.

In Central Europe folklore, Krampus is a horned, anthropomorphic figure described as ‘half-goat, half-demon’ who, during the Christmas season, punished children who misbehaved, in contrast with Saint Nicholas, who rewarded the well-behaved with gifts.”

It looks like we can thank the Dutch for refusing to give up on St. Nicholas as a gift bringer. They brought “Sintreklaas” with them when they emigrated to the New World.

Turned out they found New Englanders had shunned Christmas because it had become a bit too much like the pagan Saturnalia, celebrated as the alcohol-fueled, rowdy community blowout it had become in England.

We thank Clement Moore for “A Visit from St. Nicholas” which he wrote only for his six children with no intention of publication. Somehow it reached print and went viral. Thomas Nast usually gets the credit for drawing Santa as jolly and fat with the grandfatherly face.

Is Saint Nicholas then somehow responsible for our Christmas trees? No, he didn’t do it all. It was the ancient Romans in fact who used fir trees to decorate their temples to honor Saturn, the god of agriculture in the feast of Saturnalia.

In 16th century Germany and Latvia, trees were paraded around the streets and then set alight. I’m smiling as I pen this, remembering a very special friend. Jane and her husband usually wintered in Florida but one year decided to stay in their cottage on the lake. You’d have had to have known her to understand how perfectly normal these acts would be for Jane. The two got their tree up and decorated — white tree, white ornaments. Jane stepped back and wasn’t pleased. Try it over there. No, that’s worse. Maybe there . . . and so it went until she was satisfied. A neighbor couldn’t wait to inquire if their carrying the tree around the room was part of a special family ceremony. Little did they know!

The Europeans felt evergreen trees would keep away sickness and evil spirits so put them up during the winter solstice as a reminder summer would return and plants would grow again.

There was also a Paradise tree, decorated with apples to serve as a reminder of Adam and Eve’s day which occurred December 24th.

It’s believed that the first person to bring a tree indoors was the German Theologian Martin Luther. Walking though a forest, he was so taken by the beauty of stars twinkling through the pines that he took a tree home and attached candles to each branch.

My mother always insisted we have a hemlock which lacks any resemblance to what we picture as a tree-like shape. She also scattered shiny pennies beneath. I don’t know where that originated.

But an opportune way to end with wishes for many blessings and riches for all.

Susan Crossett has lived outside Arkwright for more than 20 years. A lifetime of writing led to these columns as well as two novels. Information on all the Musings, her books and the author may be found at Susancrossett.com.