The Real Saint Nicholas Worksheet Download

Did you know that Saint Nicholas was a real man? He was a bishop, which means a leader in the church. His town, Myra, was in the place we now call Turkey.

In Myra, people loved Nicholas because he gave secret gifts. One legend says he left three bags of gold for a poor family. A legend is a very old story that people keep telling.

That story is still told on Saint Nicholas Day, December 6. Kids in Germany and the Netherlands leave shoes by the door for treats. Wow, a kind man from over 1,600 years ago is still remembered!

Wow, some Christmas stories began with a real man who lived over 1,600 years ago! His name was Nicholas, and he was a bishop, or church leader, in the town of Myra. Myra is now in Turkey, and people remembered him for giving gifts in secret.

One old legend, or very old tale, tells of a secret gift of three bags of gold. A poor family needed help, so Nicholas quietly left the gold at their house. When they woke up, nobody knew who had left it!

Secret surprises are still part of Saint Nicholas Day on December 6. In the Netherlands and Germany, children set out shoes at night and hope for treats by morning. Did you know some Dutch children even add a carrot for the saint's horse?

Those customs traveled far, because Dutch settlers carried them across the ocean to America. Sinterklaas is the Dutch name for Saint Nicholas, and over time it began to sound like Santa Claus. So a secret gift from over 1,600 years ago still lives on in stories and shoes today!

Imagine you are a child in the Netherlands on the night of December 5, setting one shoe by the door. In the morning, you peek inside and find chocolate, nuts, or even an orange! Children in the Netherlands and Germany have done this for hundreds of years on Saint Nicholas Day, December 6.

So who is the kind man behind Saint Nicholas Day? His name was Nicholas, and he lived in the town of Myra, in what is now Turkey, more than 1,600 years ago. He became a bishop, which is a leader in the Christian church, and people remembered him for being generous. One legend, or old story, says he secretly tossed three bags of gold into the home of a poor father with three daughters.

Word of his secret gifts spread far beyond Myra, and after he died, people honored him as a saint. A saint is a person Christians remember for a holy life. Because the stories were so loved, December 6 became a day to remember him. That is why children in parts of Europe began leaving shoes out for small gifts.

Those shoe customs even crossed the ocean when Dutch settlers brought them to New Amsterdam, now New York City, in the 1600s. The Dutch called him Sinterklaas, and over time English speakers turned that into Santa Claus. So the name Santa Claus began with Sinterklaas, the Dutch name for a kind bishop from Myra.

Picture this: it is the evening of December 5 in a Dutch town, and a child carefully sets one shoe beside the fireplace. Inside is a carrot for the saint's horse, and by morning families hope to find a chocolate letter or another sweet treat. Families in the Netherlands and Germany have long celebrated Saint Nicholas Day on December 6, honoring a real man who lived about 1,700 years ago.

That man was Nicholas, a bishop, or church leader, in the ancient city of Myra, in what is now Turkey. He lived in the 300s, and people remembered him for kindness to children and families in need. Did you know he liked to give gifts in secret so that nobody could even thank him?

Secret giving is the heart of the most famous tale about him, the legend of the three bags of gold. A poor father had three daughters but no money for their weddings. One night, the story goes, Nicholas quietly left a bag of gold at the house, and he returned on two more nights. Some versions say the gold landed in stockings drying by the fire!

Stockings by the fire were not the only place for surprises, because in the Netherlands and Germany, shoes became the place to look on December 6. Since Nicholas was remembered for secret gifts, children began leaving their shoes out on the night before his special day. The Dutch called him Sint Nicolaas, and over time people shortened the name to Sinterklaas.

Sinterklaas himself took a long trip in the 1600s, when Dutch settlers sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to a colony called New Amsterdam, now New York City. They brought their customs along, and their English-speaking neighbors later said the name in their own way, until it slowly became Santa Claus. So a story that began with a kind bishop in Myra has been traveling for about 1,700 years!

Can you solve a mystery that is about 1,700 years old? Your first clue is a man named Nicholas, a bishop, or church leader, who lived in the town of Myra, in what is now Turkey, during the 300s. People remembered him for his kindness, especially toward children and families in need. Follow the trail from that town near the sea to today's shoes, sweets, and festive songs, and you will see how one generous bishop became famous around the world!

One reason he became so famous is a legend about three bags of gold. In the tale, a poor father could not afford the money his three daughters needed to marry in those days. Nicholas heard about the trouble and, not wanting any thanks, quietly delivered bags of gold to the house at night. A legend is a story handed down over many years, so the versions differ, and some even say the gold landed in stockings hung by the fire to dry!

Stockings by the fire have a cousin in the shoes children still set out for Saint Nicholas Day on December 6. Christians honor Nicholas as a saint, and December 6 is traditionally the day set aside to remember him. In the Netherlands and Germany, children put out shoes the night before, hoping to find treats such as sweets, nuts, or fruit by morning. That is almost three weeks before Christmas Day, so the season of surprises starts early!

The Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas did not stay put, because Dutch settlers carried it across the Atlantic Ocean in the 1600s. They founded a colony called New Amsterdam on the North American coast, and that place later became New York City. As English-speaking neighbors heard and repeated the Dutch name Sinterklaas over many years, it slowly changed into the name Santa Claus. Try saying Sinterklaas out loud, fast, a few times, and you can almost hear how it happened!

Names change, but the heart of this story stayed the same: kindness shown quietly, without asking for credit. Church tradition also names Nicholas the patron saint of children and sailors. Today, families in the Netherlands and Germany still set out shoes, and stories of his generosity are told in many other places. So the next time you hear the name Santa Claus, remember its trail runs back through New York and the Netherlands to a bishop in Myra about 1,700 years ago.

It's easy to assume that a story told for about 1,700 years must be pure make-believe. Here's the twist: at the heart of the Saint Nicholas stories stands a real man, a bishop who lived in the city of Myra, in what is now Turkey. That was in the 300s, centuries before castles with drawbridges or books made on printing presses. Myra sat near the warm Mediterranean coast, where merchants and sailors crossed paths every day. People who remembered Nicholas talked about his kindness, and especially about his habit of giving gifts in secret.

Secret gifts make wonderful mysteries, and they also make life hard for historians. Very few records from Nicholas's own time survive, so many details come from stories written down long after he died. The most famous of these is the legend of the three bags of gold. In the tale, a poor father could not afford to give his three daughters a secure future, so Nicholas quietly tossed bags of gold through a window at night. Since it is a legend, no one can prove each detail, but the tale explains why people admired him so much.

Stories like that are hard to keep quiet, and soon Nicholas had a day of his own: December 6, Saint Nicholas Day. In the Netherlands and Germany, children still set out shoes the night before, hoping to find treats inside by morning. Picture your sneakers by the door, and then picture finding sweets, nuts, or fruit tucked inside them! The custom works like a yearly echo, carrying an old gift-giving tale into ordinary homes far from Myra. Because the day falls on December 6, it arrives almost three weeks before Christmas.

Far from Myra turned out to mean very far, because the custom soon crossed the Atlantic Ocean. In the 1600s, Dutch settlers built a colony called New Amsterdam, which later became New York City, and they brought Sinterklaas traditions with them. As English speakers heard the Dutch name, they slowly reshaped it, the way a whispered message changes in a game of telephone. Eventually "Sinterklaas" became "Santa Claus," a name known around the world today. Imagine that: a bishop's name, stretched across an ocean and more than a thousand years, ending up on holiday cards in a hundred languages.

A name that travels so far deserves a second look, and I think its journey teaches something worth noticing. History does not always give us tidy proof, but it can show us what people chose to remember: someone who helped others without asking for credit. That idea still matters today, whenever neighbors gather food for a family in need or someone leaves a kind note without signing it. Customs like shoes by the door remind us that traditions grow when many people each add a piece. Not bad for a bishop who, according to the legend, hoped that nobody would notice his gifts at all.

A man who lived about 1,700 years ago, more than a thousand years before the printing press reached Europe, still stars in December stories today! His name was Nicholas, and in the 300s he served as a Christian bishop in Myra, a busy port city in what is now Turkey. Picture a harbor crowded with ships and a leader whom people trusted for his kindness. He became especially known for helping others in secret, without waiting for thanks. How did one bishop's reputation grow into customs that have crossed oceans?

Part of the answer is a legend about three bags of gold, the tale that made his generosity famous. In the story, a poor father had no money to help his three daughters marry, and he was deeply worried. Nicholas, wanting no credit, secretly delivered bags of gold to the family at night, and in some tellings he tossed them through an open window. Notice the word legend: it was written down long after Nicholas lived, so historians cannot confirm the details. Even so, its message about giving quietly helped it last, and Nicholas became known as a patron saint, or special protector, of children and sailors.

Those sailors, in fact, helped carry the legend far beyond Myra. Crews who asked for his protection at sea passed his story from port to port around the Mediterranean. In 1087, sailors from Bari, Italy, brought relics, objects believed to be his remains, to their own city, where a grand church was built to honor him. Pilgrims, people who travel for religious reasons, began visiting Bari, and each one carried the story home. By the Middle Ages, churches named for Nicholas stood across Europe, and December 6, the day set aside to remember him, was celebrated as his feast day.

Each place that marked December 6 added its own touches, and some of those customs are still alive in the Netherlands and Germany. On the evening before, children set out their shoes, hoping to find treats such as sweets, nuts, or fruit by morning. Some Dutch children even tuck a carrot or a handful of hay into a shoe for the saint's horse. Notice the echo of the old legend: the surprises appear overnight, quietly, while everyone sleeps. In the Netherlands the saint is called Sinterklaas, which is simply a Dutch way of saying Saint Nicholas.

That Dutch name soon sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, too. In the 1600s, Dutch settlers founded a colony called New Amsterdam, the place that later became New York City. They brought their Sinterklaas customs along, and historians widely agree that English-speaking neighbors gradually reshaped the name into 'Santa Claus.' Say 'Sinterklaas' quickly a few times, and you can hear how the sounds could soften and blur. In America the gift-giving also drifted closer to Christmas, when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus, and the two traditions began to blend.

As those traditions blended, writers and artists gave the character a look and a voice, and printing presses spread their work quickly. A poem first published in 1823, 'A Visit from St. Nicholas,' painted a cheerful picture that people kept reprinting for generations. Later in the 1800s, the cartoonist Thomas Nast drew images for Harper's Weekly that helped many Americans picture the character. Newspapers and magazines did the job that sailors once did, carrying a story farther and faster than any one person could. Follow those pictures and poems far enough back, and you reach a bishop in Myra who preferred to give quietly, some 1,700 years ago.

In 1087, sailors from the Italian port of Bari crossed the Mediterranean to Myra, a town on the coast of what is now Turkey, and returned with what they believed were the bones of a bishop who had lived more than 700 years earlier. Why would anyone risk a sea voyage for a man who had been gone for centuries? Because Nicholas of Myra had become one of the most beloved figures in Christianity, remembered for a generosity so quiet that nobody could say for sure who was behind it. His name still echoes in Saint Nicholas Day, in the Dutch Sinterklaas, and even in the words Santa Claus. Yet the real story is a puzzle: the man is hard to see while the legends are easy to see, so anyone studying him must work like a detective.

Detective work is exactly what the evidence demands, because no biography written during his lifetime survives. Historians generally agree that Nicholas was a bishop of Myra in the 300s, and that is about where the certainty ends. The earliest detailed accounts were written centuries after his death, by which time stories had piled up like snow on a rooftop. One famous tale places him at the Council of Nicaea in 325, a gathering of bishops from across the Roman Empire, yet his name is missing from the surviving attendance lists, which are themselves incomplete. Does that prove he was absent? Not at all: a missing name is a gap in the evidence, not a verdict, which is why careful historians say uncertain rather than false.

Gaps like that are where legends grow, and none has grown more famous than the tale of the three bags of gold. In the story, a father is so poor that he cannot afford dowries, the money a family was expected to provide when a daughter married, for his three daughters. Nicholas hears of the trouble and, wanting no credit, secretly delivers a bag of gold to the house on each of three nights. Because this account is a legend, a story handed down by tradition rather than a documented event, historians treat it with caution. Still, its message of giving without applause helps explain why it has survived for centuries.

Giving in secret needs a special night, and for Nicholas that night comes on December 6, the date traditionally observed as his feast day. In the Netherlands and parts of Germany, children set out shoes on the evening before, hoping to find treats such as sweets or nuts by morning. Folklorists often link the custom to the gold legend, since in both, gifts appear in the night unseen, though nobody can say exactly when shoes first entered the tradition. One surprising detail: in the Netherlands, Sinterklaas traditionally arrives by steamboat from Spain in mid-November, weeks before his special day.

Sinterklaas has always been a traveler, and one popular explanation says he crossed the Atlantic too, with Dutch settlers who founded New Amsterdam, now New York City, in the 1600s. Some historians urge caution, however, because few colonial records describe Saint Nicholas celebrations there. They point instead to the early 1800s, when New Yorkers proud of their Dutch heritage revived the old figure, and Washington Irving included Saint Nicholas in his humorous 1809 history of the city. Both views may hold a piece of the truth, since a custom can arrive, fade, and return in a new form. The name itself records the journey: English speakers gradually bent Sinterklaas into Santa Claus.

That change from Sinterklaas to Santa Claus shows how a name can wander far from home, and Nicholas's reputation wandered too, until he was honored as a patron saint of sailors and children. A church honoring him still stands in Demre, the Turkish town where Myra once flourished, and pilgrims also visit a basilica in Bari, Italy, built to hold the relics the sailors carried home. Christians honor him as a saint whose faith showed itself in kindness, while people of many backgrounds enjoy customs that grew around his name. Perhaps the most striking part of the puzzle is that sailors crossed a sea for a bishop we know little about, yet the kindness people remembered has carried his name across oceans and languages for well over a thousand years.