From the frozen taiga or the snowy black forests of Belarus, an old-world tradition touched my early days.

St. Nicholas visited!

Not the roly-poly Santa Claus that brings gifts on Christmas, but the hardworking bewhiskered bishop that lived about 270 AD. He was born in what today is Turkey. He became the bishop of Myra.

Shrouded in mystery like an ancient ancestor, St. Nicholas was an ethnic thing or perhaps a religious tradition.

Karen Rose Wils

It is said that St. Nicholas gave gifts to children and threw dowry money down chimneys so that poor girls could get married.

He is honored as the patron saint of Russia and Greece.

The first time I heard St. Nick’s name mentioned I was just a young girl. My mother reminisced about her childhood days when an orange (a real treat in those days) and some hard candy sometimes made it into a shoe at their house on the feast day of St. Nicholas.

Mom’s dad, my grandfather, emigrated from Russia in 1915. Even though he died way before I was born, a few of “old country” traditions were passed on.

The next time I heard about St. Nicholas, I was in first grade at St. Thomas Catholic School. The good Dominican sisters saw to it that each student had a candy cane tucked into their shoe when we returned in from recess.

St. Nick’s feast day is Dec. 6. On the evening before, children left out a shoe or stocking for the saintly bishop to fill. (A little help from older family members sometimes played into it.)

By the time I was in high school, I had tons of younger cousins, nieces and nephews. My mom, my sister and I truly loved to be St. Nick’s helpers!

Homemade caramel corn was one of the treats we made. Mom buttered her largest roaster and filled it with 10 to 11 cups of popped popcorn. In a separate kettle 1 cup of brown sugar, ¼ cup corn syrup, ½ cup butter were brought to a boil. I remember stirring and timing it for four minutes.

Then we removed it from the heat and tossed in 1/8 teaspoon of cream of tartar and ½ teaspoon of baking soda. The fun part was stirring up the frothy growing mixture.

It was spread over the popcorn, mixed in and baked at 200 degrees for one hour, stirring every 15 minutes or so.

The kitchen table was lined with waxed paper ready for the hot popcorn to be poured out and cooled.

One year we tried to make popcorn balls but shaping them turned out to be a burning hot fingertip challenge.

The popcorn was bagged along with a few tiny toys. We delivered them to the backdoors of the kids, tip-toeing in the snow to avoid leaving footprints.

When the deliveries were made, Mom warmed us up with hot chocolate or, in the later years, a glass of wine.

Much of this simple tradition is gone, replaced by shopping malls and computer wish lists.

But the spirit of Christmas is alive and well. Every can-a-thon, every Salvation Army kettle and Angel Tree proves that St. Nick’s tradition lives on.

Tonight, on the eve of St. Nichols, Santa will come to downtown Escanaba in a grand parade.

The magic, the mystery and the caring and sharing continue to thrive! Happy St. Nicholas Day.