Here’s to St. Nicholas!

This morning is December 6, St. Nicholas day to the European world. 

After World War II, my father spent 8 years in Germany and brought back with him a beautiful lady that I was lucky enough to have for a  mom, and so St. Nicholas day has always been celebrated at our house. 

 St. Nicholas was born in the third century to wealthy Christian parents who taught Nicholas the importance of practicing the teachings of Christ. Apparently there was an epidemic of sorts and both parents died and left Nicholas with tons of money and wealth. So Nicholas spent his early years assisting the poor, helping kids and anyone in need. He pretty much just lived a simple life of giving. Eventually he became a leader in the church, the bishop, which is why when you see pictures of him, he looks a bit spooky with all of the garb that church leaders would wear back then. Later under the Roman Emperor Diocletian, who persecuted all Christians, Nicholas was imprisoned.

As time went on Nicholas became a hero and the stories around him grew. One of those stories probably originated from Nicholas dropping a couple of coins into some needy person's shoe. Of course the story became bigger and better with time. If you have time, look it up. Nicholas died on Dec 6, 343 AD and they made him a Saint.

 Anyway, the German tradition is that you set your shoes out by the door on the evening before Dec 6, and in the morning you will find some goodies in there. It was, and still is, an exciting event at our house.

 At our house, and I believe that this may be true everywhere that the tradition is practiced, these gifts are a lot more simpler than what we give in the American Christmas where Santa Claus gets you whatever you want, at least if you were good. A couple of nuts, an orange, a knick knack, (where did that word come from) just something simple, that's what you got.

As a kid, having roots in both places, now that was just a good thing.

As we've gotten older one of my siblings even made it better. They made their rounds and made sure that the rest of us didn't forget the tradition. Well, at least my kids were pretty sure that it was an aunt or an uncle that was stuffing our shoes. The tradition continues to this day. But possibly it's not an aunt or uncle at all!  My kids have done all kinds of things to crack the mystery. They've set trail cameras on the porch, sat up all night with a video camera waiting, but still the mystery continues.

I grew up loving early American history, especially that period around 1750 when our area was first being settled by the white man. During my late teens and early 20s I loved reading, at least if it was a really good book about hunting or the history of the frontier. 

Before Zane Grey got into writing all of his famous westerns, he wrote some really good books about the  Zanesville, Ohio  area, and how the Zanes settled there. These books were based on historical facts but of course embellished quite a bit.

Betty Jane, The Last Trail, and Spirit of the Border were some of those books. Zane Grey's ability to bring all of the characters out in a dramatic way made it really hard to put those books down. Colonel Zane was the big man in charge at Fort Zane, but the two men that roamed the woods and helped to protect the settlement were Lew Wetzel and Jonathan Zane. These were real and historical characters. Lew Wetzel actually grew up in Moorefield, WV which isn't very far from where I currently live. Of course that was before WV or even the United States of America even existed. Lew Wetzel’s family was  killed by Indians when he was young and so he became pretty ruthless. Jonathan Zane was captured by Indians, treated well, and learned their ways while living with them. Later he escaped and became a valuable part of protecting the settlement. He was portrayed as a much more kind frontiersman.

If my memory is correct, one of the things Jonathan was known for, was that he was someone who was able to harvest a deer when others weren't able to. During hard times, he would harvest a deer, sneak into the settlement, and hang the deer in some poor and hungry settler's yard.

We'll probably never have a Jonathan Zane day, and that's okay. Tradition is important. But probably even more important, is that we find those little things that we have the ability to do, and do them for others. It'll probably never become a national tradition, but it will probably be more in line with what Nicholas would want.

So I raise my glass to St Nicholas! 

 May the focus be more on what is coming out of our hands than what is going into our shoes!