Saint Nicholas Day Barbara (4 December), St. Savvas (5 December), and the following feast of St. Anne (9 December); all these are often collectively called the ""Nikolobárbara"", and are considered a succession of days that heralds the onset of truly wintry cold weather in the country. Therefore, by tradition, homes should have already been laid with carpets, removed for the warm season, by St. Andrew's Day (30 November), a week ahead of the "Nikolobárbara". In Serbia, and among the Serb people living across the world, Saint Nicholas is the most widely celebrated family patron saint, celebrated as the feast day ("Slava") of "Nikoljdan".
Saint Nicholas may have been intended to enhance Bari's reputation by displaying that it had attracted the patronage of a saint from a far-off country. In Roman Catholic iconography, Saint Nicholas is depicted as a bishop, wearing the insignia of this dignity: a bishop's vestments, a mitre and a crozier. The episode with the three dowries is commemorated by showing him holding in his hand either three purses, three coins or three balls of gold. Depending on whether he is depicted as patron saint of children or sailors, his images will be completed by a background showing ships, children or three figures