Happy St. Nicholas Day

"Today is the day in the church year when we remember and commemorate St. Nicholas. You have to love the old guy, as opposed to that jolly old elf impersonating him these days. Dr. Gene Edward Veith reminds us of the sturdy stuff of which our dear Saint Nicholas was made, when he slapped Arius around for heresy."

Pastor McCain at Cyberbrethren

 

http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/bishop-nicholas-loses-his-cool/

UPDATE @ 8:15 PM on 12/6/12: Found the information below on the Facebook page of St. Augustine's House Lutheran Monastery in nearby Oxford...

St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra - Saint Nicholas (Greek: Άγιος Νικόλαος, Hagios ["holy"] Nicolaos ["victory of the people"]) (270–6 December 343), was a historic 4th-century saint and Greek Bishop of Myra (Demre, in Lycia, part of modern-day Turkey). Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker (Greek: Νικόλαος ο Θαυματουργός, Nikolaos o Thaumaturgos). He had a reputation for secret gift-giving, such as putting coins in the shoes of those who left them out for him, and thus became the model for Santa Claus, whose modern name comes from the Dutch Sinterklaas, itself from a series of elisions and corruptions of the transliteration of "Saint Nikolaos". His reputation evolved among the faithful, as was common for early Christian saints.