Who was the real St. Nick?
St. Nicholas was bishop of Myra, in Turkey, in the 4th century. That’s about the only thing that can be said of him with any degree of certainty. The rest is legend, including an old story about how he saved three girls from prostitution by providing them with marriage dowries he threw three bags of gold into their window at night. He is the patron saint of children, and in Holland there was a tradition of giving gifts to kids on his feast day of December 6. In Dutch, his name is Sinte Klaas. It seems that Dutch Protestants brought this practice to the New World, combined it with Nordic legends about a magician who gave presents to nice children but none to the naughty ones, and gave birth to the modern tradition of Santa Claus. How did Christmas become Xmas? It’s Greek to us literally. The Greek word for Christ is Xristos. That’s where the X in Xmas comes from. There’s a Christian website called www.xristos.com. Here’s what it says: Xristos is a transliteration of the New Testament Gr
