Mikołajki in Poland

Mikołajki - the secularized name of Saint Nicholas' Day, celebrated on December 6 in Catholicism and Orthodoxy, in honor of Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Mira. Until the 19th century, it was a day off in Poland. In 1969, the Catholic Church abolished the feast, it is only the so-called any memory. From the Middle Ages, on the eve of that day, Saint Nicholas (or rather a person dressed as him) brought gifts to children. Nowadays, in Poland, at night, children are given small gifts, small toys and, above all, sweets. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Santa who gifted children on his holiday was transformed into a fairy-tale character giving gifts on Christmas, used in mass culture.

The figure and legend of Saint Nicholas depicted as a fat man in a red sheepskin coat with a long white beard in a sleigh drawn by reindeer was probably created in the 20s of our century on behalf of the Coca-Cola concern.