Happy St. Nicholas Day! Be afraid. Be very afraid...

Take a look at this quintessential mid-century rendering of St. Nick from the awesome vintagecentric site, Fenderskirts.com.  Couldn't you just clap your hands in joyous rapture?  He's festive and cheery, plump and velvety.  Makes you want to shake his jolly old hand, offer him an eggnog latte, and sit and chat for a spell.  And then you can pet the reindeer (must be Cupid, with such a winsome look) and offer it a Kashi bar or something.  Bluebirds, probably from the same forest Snow White traipses through, provide a sweet melody and all is sugary and dappled with nonpareils.

While visiting my dad today, one of the homecare professionals effusively wished me a happy St. Nicholas Day.  I recalled something about Sinterklaas in Holland and kids' shoes being left out in Poland for gifts to be deposited in, but I didn't know much more about the background of St. Nick's feast day than that.

So I did a little scrounging around and came up with some very interesting finds, like this little bit of lightness from Wikipedia:
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In Czech and Slovakia, Mikuláš, in Poland Mikołaj and in Ukraine Svyatyi Mykolay is often also accompanied by an angel (anděl/anioł/anhel) who acts as a counterweight to the ominous devil or Knecht Ruprecht (čert/czart).

This is obviously no "cork on the fork" Ruprecht if he's considered an "ominous devil" who menaces the affable Mikulas.  I shuddered and hid my beagle in my recording booth, for fear she might be whisked away by this unsavory spectre.

But wait - it's even more unsettling in France:

St. Nicolas comes primarily in Alsace, Lorraine and Nord-Pas-de-Calais (French Flanders). St. Nicolas is patron of Lorraine. A little donkey carries baskets filled with children's gifts, biscuits (U.S. 'cookies') and sweets. The whole family gets ready for the saint's arrival on December 6, with grandparents telling stories of the saint. The most popular one is of three children who wandered away and got lost. Cold and hungry, a wicked butcher lured them into his shop where he attacked and salted them away in a large tub. Through the intervention of St. Nicolas the boys were restored to their families. This story led to Nicolas being recognized as the protector of children. In France statues and paintings often portray this event, showing the saint with children in a barrel. The evil butcher became Père Fouettard, who has followed St Nicolas in shame ever since.  Meanwhile bakeries and home kitchens are a hive of activity as spiced gingerbread biscuits (U.S 'cookies') and mannala (a brioche shaped like the good saint) are baked. At school children learn St. Nicolas songs and poems and draw and paint St. Nicolas pictures and crafts. Saint Nicolas visits nursery schools, giving children chocolates and sometimes even a little present. Though Père Fouettard carries switches to threaten the children, what they really fear is that he may advise Saint Nicolas to pass them by on his gift-giving rounds.

Say what?  Briny children?  Switches?  Kids in a barrel?  Did Sondheim write the lyrics to the musical version?:

"Attend the tale of Pere Fouettard.
He threw the babes in a barrel of lard.
Like cocktail peanuts he salted them;
With switches he threatened - this guy was a gem.
St. Nicholas, please save the kids
From the demon butcher of Alsace!"

Of course, many a tale comes with its pinch of morality story, and the many fables and legends attached to St. Nicholas are no exception.  I like to think of him as a benevolent next-door neighbor who's maybe a little tipsy, but is full of life, ready with a joke, and generous to a fault, who rewards you for giving of yourself.  Which brings to mind when my Uncle Wally, who enjoyed his scotch, dressed up like Santa when I was about four, accompanied by an inflatable toy reindeer with glamor lashes.  I recall him tipping the little animal's' nose into the highball glass.

Perhaps that's a different morality story for another day...