6 December
Feast of Saint Nicholas
(Christian holiday)

6 December – Feast of Saint Nicholas
(Christian holiday)
(On the feast day of Saint Nicholas, the bishop.)

The figure of “Mikulás” (similar to Santa Claus), dressed in a cloak, bishop’s mitre, and holding a crozier while distributing gifts, originally emerged in Catholic regions as a folkloric representation of Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, a city in the Roman province of Lycia. Saint Nicholas is regarded as the patron saint of children and students, which is why, under the influence of popular religious traditions, the gift-giving, mitre-wearing Mikulás is seen as a model based on him.

In 1087, the relics of Saint Nicholas were transferred from Myra to the southern Italian city of Bari, which subsequently became one of Europe’s most important Christian centres. The Hungarian folk traditions associated with Saint Nicholas’s Day show clear German influence.

The Catholic cult of Saint Nicholas was brought to Germany by merchants in the 10th century. During the Middle Ages, his deeds were commemorated through role-playing performances. Initially, the youngest students in monastic schools would play the part of Nicholas, a role later taken over by adults. From this practice evolved the custom – which eventually reached Hungary – of a red-cloaked elderly man, later known in Hungarian-speaking areas as “Mikulás,” going from house to house on the evening before the feast day, examining, praising, rewarding, or even scolding and punishing children.

According to modern Hungarian folk tradition, Mikulás visits children during the night of 5 December or early morning on 6 December. If they have behaved well throughout the year, he leaves small gifts for them. This custom of placing gifts in boots left on windowsills dates back roughly a century.

In Hungarian-speaking regions, the term Télapó (“Winter Father”) also came into use for this character—mainly from the 1950s onward. However, this name likely stems from a mistaken blending of various cultural traditions. The long-established term Mikulás, first recorded in 1856, refers to a folkloric and mythical figure who gives gifts to children on 6 December, Saint Nicholas’s Day.