Santa visited us yesterday. More specifically, St. Nicholas visited us.
As wikipedia writes:
Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, prostitutes, children, brewers, pawnbrokers unmarried people, and students in various cities and countries around Europe. His reputation evolved among the pious, as was common for early Christian saints, and his legendary habit of secret gift-giving gave rise to the traditional model of Santa Claus ("Saint Nick") through Sinterklaas.
The gift-giving began when St. Nicholas knew of a noble man who had a poor fate and who, because of his poverty, could not find husbands for his daughters. Sources write this story differently, somewhere they write that the girls have already worked as prostitutes because of this, and elsewhere they write that they escaped this fate with the help of St. Nicholas. So one night St. Nicholas went to their house and threw a sack of gold through the open window. With the money, the oldest girl was able to get married. He did the same in the following years, helping the other two girls get married.
The third year that day was so cold that the windows were locked and Saint Nicholas could not throw the gold through it. So he climbed onto the roof and threw the small bag through the chimney. One of the girl's stockings dried just below the chimney and the gold fell into her stockings, where she found it the next morning.
That explains the big socks hanging on the fireplace, right?
St. Nicholas also gifted the good children, but punished the bad ones.
Nowadays, kids clean their shoes and put it in the window. In the shoes, on the morning of December 6, they will find a small gift package, mainly sweets.
I wrote such a long introduction because I know that not all countries celebrate St. Nicholas Day, and yesterday when I wrote a post about Santa's visit, several people wrote that it was early. Anyway, at Christmas, it’s not Santa who comes to us but little Jesus, but that’s a different story.
So this was the first time Bence had met Santa, because he had been sick every year so far when he visited the kids in kindergarten. Now a man in a costume has come to us who is taking on the role of Santa Claus elsewhere. Bence looked at him with his mouth open when he saw him in the doorway. He accepted the gifts, of course, but after that he didn't care much about Santa, he was more interested in the gifts. Hehe!
Many small children are frightened when they first meet Santa, since at such a young age they are just a foreign uncle to them. Bence wasn't scared, he was just amazed.
By the way, Santa is a great help to parents, because during this period, children can be told that if they are not behaving well, Santa will not come to them. Hahah!
In Poland we also celebrate Santa day on the 6th of December and then again on the 24th, although with a different name.