Saint Nicholas Day Saint Nicholas Day Saint Nicholas Day, observed on December 5/6 in Western Christian countries and December 19 in Eastern Christian countries, is the feast day of Saint Nicholas. It is celebrated as a Christian festival with particular regard to his reputation as a bringer of gifts, as well as through the attendance of Mass or other worship services. In Europe, especially in "Germany and Poland, boys would dress as bishops begging alms for the poor." In Ukraine, children wait for St. Nicholas to come and to put a present under their pillows provided that the children were good during 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