What fun to return from delivering St. Nicholas Eve gifts to a few family and friends and to find Mike, Carol, and John's postings about St. Nicholas Feast Day. I live in Holland, Michigan--a Dutch heritage (though now diverse) community that many years ago introduced my wife and I to St. Nicholas, who is celebrated in the Netherlands as Sinterklaas. This weekend, several hundred children here in Holland, MI, greeted the arrival of St. Nicholas in a main street parade. Our living here also led my wife, Carol, to create a website devoted to St. Nicholas <http://www.stnicholascenter.org/>(which, if history repeats itself, will have more than 100,000 visitors today and tomorrow).
To make this entry pertinent to psychology, the spirit of St. Nicholas (and of those trying to reclaim the altruistic spirit of the original Santa Claus) was nicely captured in a 2009 *European Journal of Social Psychology *study of the priming of altruism among Dutch children. Tilburg University social psychologist Diederik Stapel and his colleagues offer this synopsis, from their discussion section: One may think that traditions like the Dutch Saint Nicholas tradition makes children materialistic, greedy, and less likely to share with others as they are spoiled with gifts and candy. However, our results clearly show that children in The Netherlands still associate Saint Nicholas with "sharing with others" . . . . Significant others, such as family members, friends, and Saint Nicholas, are pre-eminently the people that influence us and that teach us what is good, and what is bad, and what the social norms are in our society. . . . Give Dutch children a coloring picture depicting the attributes of Saint Nicholas (a book, miter, and a staff) and they will give away more of their candy. J Dave Myers www.davidmyers.org On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 5:30 PM, Mike Palij <[email protected]> wrote: > December 6 is celebrated among certain groups as St. Nicholas' Feast Day. > St. Nicholas lived from 270-347 A.D. and is considered as the basis or > precursor to Santa Claus. For more info about old St. Nick, there is a > Wikipedia entry (yadda-yadda); see: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas > > Quoting from the entry: > |He had a reputation for secret gift-giving, such as putting coins in the > |shoes of those who left them out for him, and thus became the model > |for Santa Claus, whose English name comes from the Dutch Sinterklaas. > > Make sure you check your shoes before you put them on tomorrow. > > Also, December 19 is observed by some who follow the old (Julian) calendar. > Check your shoes then, too. > > -Mike Palij > New York University > [email protected] > > > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13427.360bfbe9fb2fe3f305db7b6fe1f8a4ad&n=T&l=tips&o=6996 > or send a blank email to > leave-6996-13427.360bfbe9fb2fe3f305db7b6fe1f8a...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=7004 or send a blank email to leave-7004-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
