In God's Garden: Saint Nicholas by Amy Steedman

Of all the saints that little children love is there any to compare with / Santa Claus? The very sound of his name has magic in it, and calls up / visions of well-filled stockings, with the presents we particularly want / peeping over the top, or hanging out at the side, too big to go into / the largest sock. Besides, there is something so mysterious and exciting / about Santa Claus, for no one seems to have ever seen him. But we picture / him to ourselves as an old man with a white beard, whose favourite way / of coming into our rooms is down the chimney, bringing gifts for the good / children and punishments for the bad.

Yet this Santa Claus, in whose name the presents come to us at Christmas / time, is a very real saint, and we can learn a great deal about him, / only we must remember that his true name is Saint Nicholas. Perhaps the / little children, who used to talk of him long ago, found Saint Nicholas / too difficult to say, and so called him their dear Santa Claus. But we / learn, as we grow older, that Nicholas is his true name, and that he is / a real person who lived long years ago, far away in the East.