Saint Nicholas Day blessed at church or at home. The host wafts incense over the table, then lifts and breaks the bread. Bulgarians also observe 6 December as the name day for those with the names Nikola, Nikolay, Kolyo, Nikolina, Neno, Nenka, Nikoleta and Nina. In the Netherlands the primary occasion for gift-giving is 5 December, when his feast day is celebrated. In Belgium they celebrate Sinterklaas on the morning of the 6 December. In the days leading up to 5 or 6 December (starting when Saint Nicholas has arrived by steamboat around mid-November), young children put their shoes in front of the
St Nicholas Cole Abbey shelter or shelter from the cold. The church was never an abbey. The earliest reference to the church is in a letter of Pope Lucius II in 1144-5. St Nicholas of Myra is patron saint of, among other groups, children and fishermen, and the church has special ties with both. An inventory of the church’s possessions taken at the time of the Protestant Reformation includes vestments for children, suggesting that the church maintained the tradition of electing a boy bishop on Saint Nicholas Day. Deeds in the reign of Richard I refer to a new fish market near St. Nicholas