Saint Nicholas

Well, a very interesting and sometimes confusing tradition is taking place in the eve of December 6th, every year, for the Romanian people. Saint Nicholas, a similar figure to Santa Claus arrives every year to celebrate his day and brings gifts for the well behaved children or wooden sticks for the bad ones.

Although the role of gift-giver on Christmas Day itself is assigned to the Christ Child, on the eve of Saint Nicholas’ feast day of 6 December, Romanian children traditionally place a boot on their windowsill waiting for Saint Nicholas to come by and fill it with treats. The treats can be fruit, chocolate, sweets, candies or toys and to get the presents, children must carefully polish their boots and go to sleep.

This tradition can be found in other neighbor countries, such as Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Slovakia. Lucky the children of these countries, they get presents twice this month!