Christmas gift-bringer and La Befana (similar to Santa Claus; she rides a broomstick rather than a sleigh, but is not considered a witch) besides Santa Lucia ("Saint Lucy," a blind old woman who on December 13 brings gifts to children in some regions, riding a donkey) and Gesù bambino ("Child Jesus"). In many parts of Switzerland, and in Northeastern Italy (east of the Piave (river)), Saint Nicholas is also celebrated on December 6. Saint Lucy brings gifts to children on the eve of her feast day—December 13—in Udine, Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, Lodi, Mantova, Piacenza, Parma, Reggio Emilia, Verona and Western Trentino. Christmas
Father Christmas Claus leaving presents on New Year's Eve 1852, with children "hanging their stockings up on each side of the fire-place, in their sleeping apartments, at night, and waiting patiently till morning, to see what Santa Claus puts into them during their slumbers". In Ireland in 1853, on the other hand, presents were being left on Christmas Eve according to a character in a newspaper short story who says "... tomorrow will be Christmas. What will Santa Claus bring us?" A poem published in Belfast in 1858 includes the lines "The children sleep; they dream of him, the fairy, / Kind