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Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Tuesday's Truths Week Twenty: Honoring Saint Nicholas


Welcome to the twentieth week of my Tuesday's Truths series where I am paying homage to the beloved Saint Nicholas, as today, December the sixth, is his feast day. The image atop this entry is a depiction Saint Nicholas, and it comes from catholicompany.com  In any event, according to Holiday Insights, "Saint Nicholas lived in the country of Greece, just a couple hundred years after the birth of Christ. (And) This day is in honor of Saint Nicholas and his life."

Holiday Insights explains that "Saint Nicholas became a priest, and later, a Bishop of the early Catholic Church. True to the christian concept of giving up belongings and following Christ, St. Nicholas gave up all of his belongings. He was well known for giving to needy people, especially children. There are may stories and tales of him helping out children in need.

"The practice of hanging up stockings originated with Saint Nicholas. As the ancient legend goes, Saint Nicholas was known to throw small bags of gold coins into the open windows of poor homes. After one bag of gold fell into the stocking of a child, news got around. Children soon began hanging their stocking by their chimneys 'in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.'

"It wasn't until the 1800's that the spirit of St. Nicholas' life evolved into the creation of Santa Claus. And, this happened in America. Santa Claus emerged (or evolved) from the stories and legends of St. Nicholas."

As a child, I believed in Santa, and was pleased to visit him at our local shopping center at Christmas time, which was an occurrence that became a subject of one of my mother's Christmas cards, and it can be seen below in an image featuring the front and inside of the card (respectively).



To this day when the Christmas holidays come near, I have placed Santa figurines around my home as a reminder of the philosophy of Saint Nicholas. A few close-ups of these figurines can be seen in the images below.




Additionally I've written "stories" about these Santa-themed characters here on Blogger, as well as in posts for tumblr and hometalk.

Moreover, in bygone years, I''ve given Santa Claus figurines to family and friends who appreciate the influence of Saint Nicholas, re the inspiration he provided for the "concept" of Santa Claus. A few examples of Santa figurines that I've given to others can be seen in the pictures directly below.




These figurines (as well as the other ones featured in this post), are from More & More Antiques, a shop on the UWS of NYC, which is currently selling my fauna-flora-insect-themed postcards! All of my postcards feature images of fauna, flora and insects that are included in both the iBook as well as the ePub version of Cam's book, Words In Our Beak Volume One.


The aforementioned postcards,  as well as either version of Cam's book, Words In Our Beak, make delightful gifts for any occasion; including the upcoming holidays of Christmas, Chanukah, and Kwanzaa! But either item (or both) would be a beautiful gift to give someone who honor the inspiration of the works of Saint Nicholas!


ADDENDUM FALL 2018: 

The non-hardcover version (or versions)  of Volume One within the Words In Our Beak book series that are mentioned in this entry may only remain available for a limited time, but hardcover versions of Volume One, Two and Three can now be found wherever books are sold. Please click here to go to my blog post that provides details as to where you can get these books.

MY BOOK SERIES

Additionally, I have rendered some images from these books into other formats and they are available via Fine Art America (FAA). Some of my other photographs (Black & White Collection, Kaleidoscopic Images and the famous Mandarin duck who visited NYC) can also be found on my FAA pages.

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