Song of the Day - 6th December

Today's Song of the Day is our first Christmas-themed song!

Today is of course the feast day of St. Nicholas. Dutch families took the tradition of celebrating the feast day of St. Nicholas with them to New Amsterdam in the American colonies, beginning as early as the 17th century. They referred to him as Sinter Klaas. That name became Santa Claus to the early United States’ English-speaking majority.

Nicholas was born sometime around A.D. 280 in Patara, near Myra in modern-day Turkey. Much admired for his piety and kindness, St. Nicholas became the subject of many legends. It is said that he gave away all of his inherited wealth and travelled the countryside helping the poor and sick. Nicholas’s popularity spread and he became known as the protector of children and sailors. His feast day is celebrated on the anniversary of his death, December 6.

In 1804, John Pintard, a member of the New York Historical Society, distributed woodcuts of St. Nicholas (see image left) at the society’s annual meeting. The background of the engraving contains now-familiar Santa images including stockings filled with toys and fruit hung over a fireplace.  The poem I have chosen is called simply "St. Nicholas" and was written by Horatio Alger Jr. (1832-1899), primarily a novelist, who published this poem in 1875 in a collection entitled "Ballads". It tells the tale of St. Nicholas, who dwells at the North Pole, spending his year travelling the world collecting various gifts "from many lands" before soaring across the country with his sledge and reindeer to distribute them on Christmas Eve.

Get the music for this song for free - find out how here.

St. Nicholas

By Horatio Alger, Jr.

In the far-off Polar seas,

Far beyond the Hebrides,

Where the icebergs, towering high,

Seem to pierce the wintry sky,

And the fur-clad Esquimaux

Glides in sledges o'er the snow,

Dwells St. Nick, the merry wight,

Patron saint of Christmas night.

Solid walls of massive ice,

Bearing many a quaint device,

Flanked by graceful turrets twain,

Clear as clearest porcelain,

Bearing at a lofty height

Christ's pure cross in simple white,

Carven with surpassing art

From an iceberg's crystal heart.

Here St. Nick, in royal state,

Dwells, until December late

Clips the days at either end,

And the nights at each extend;

Then, with his attendant sprites,

Scours the earth on wintry nights,

Bringing home, in well-filled hands,

Children's gifts from many lands.

Here are whistles, tops and toys,

Meant to gladden little boys;

Skates and sleds that soon will glide

O'er the ice or steep hill-side.

Here are dolls with flaxen curls,

Sure to charm the little girls;

Christmas books, with pictures gay,

For this welcome holiday.

In the court the reindeer wait;

Filled the sledge with costly freight.

As the first faint shadow falls,

Promptly from his icy halls

Steps St. Nick, and grasps the rein:

And afar, in measured time,

Sounds the sleigh-bells' silver chime.

Like an arrow from the bow

Speed the reindeer o'er the snow.

Onward! Now the loaded sleigh

Skirts the shores of Hudson's Bay.

Onward, till the stunted tree

Gains a loftier majesty,

And the curling smoke-wreaths rise

Under less inclement skies.

Built upon a hill-side steep

Lies a city wrapt in sleep.

Up and down the lonely street

Sleepy watchmen pace their beat.

Little heeds them Santa Claus;

Not for him are human laws.

With a leap he leaves the ground,

Scales the chimney at a bound.

Five small stockings hang below;

Five small stockings in a row.

From his pocket blithe St. Nick

Fills the waiting stockings quick;

Some with sweetmeats, some with toys,

Gifts for girls, and gifts for boys,

Mounts the chimney like a bird,

And the bells are once more heard.

Santa Claus! Good Christmas saint,

In whose heart no selfish taint

Findeth place, some homes there be

Where no stockings wait for thee,

Homes where sad young faces wear

Painful marks of Want and Care,

And the Christmas morning brings

No fair hope of better things.

Can you not some crumbs bestow

On these Children steeped in woe;

Steal a single look of care

Which their sad young faces wear;

From your overflowing store

Give to them whose hearts are sore?

No sad eyes should greet the morn

When the infant Christ was born.