Advent has so many fun and interesting saints and feast days! As we prepare for the birth of Our Savior, we can try to emulate our friends in heaven to help us along the way. We can look to them to learn how to be virtuous and holy. Today, I will share some simple ideas for celebrating the feast of St. Nicholas on December 6th.

St. Nicholas – December 6th

Patron of:

• sailors
• merchants
• archers
• repentant thieves children
• brewers
• pawnbrokers
• students

Virtue

Charity

About St. Nicholas

St. Nicholas is an easy saint to integrate into your Advent traditions if you don’t already celebrate his feast day! It is important to teach our children about the real and holy man who is now a saint.

St. Nicholas was the archbishop of Myra in the 4th century. His parents died when he was young, and he lived a humble life. St. Nicholas was a very generous and charitable man. There are many miracles and legends documented about his life. One such story is that three daughters of a poor man did not have enough dowery to be married. When he heard this, St. Nicholas secretly threw sacks of gold (1 for each daughter) through their window so that the daughters could marry.

How to Celebrate the Feast

• Attend Mass and encourage students to attend.
• Choose one or more of the readings from Mass to discuss in class.
• Pray the Divine Office (or, part of it) with your students. The Divine Office linked will also have many ideas for appropriate hymns to play today.
• Donate toys to an organization or parish.
• Talk about what virtues St. Nicholas was associated with. One example is charity. Discuss how you and your students could have charity in different scenarios.
• More discussion questions:
  • What do you think a day in the life of this saint was like?
  • What difficulties or challenges did this saint face? How did he or she overcome them?
  • How did the saint exhibit virtue in his or her life? How can we work to imitate this virtue?
  • What else can this saint teach us about living a good life and how to grow closer to Christ?

The Concluding Prayer from the Divine Office Morning Prayer on 12-7-25:

O God, who sent your Only Begotten Son into this world
to free the human race from its ancient enslavement,
bestow on those who devoutly await him
the grace of your compassion from on high,
that we may attain the prize of true freedom.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
— Amen.