The Ukrainian Christmas festive days according to the Julian calendar, start on 6 January, Christmas Eve, and end on 19th January, "Jordan" or Epiphany.There are many traditions but we shall highlight just one here:
Svyatyi Mykolai (Saint Nicholas)
Svyatyi Mykolai's feast-day is on December 19th. He would bring gifts to the children who would find their Christmas gifts under their pillows on that morning.
Saint Nicholas (15 March 270 – 6 December 343) also called Nikolaos of Myra, was a historic 4th-century Christian saint and Greek Bishop of Myra (Demre, part of modern-day Turkey) in Lycia. Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker. 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 modern name comes from the Dutch Sinterklaas, itself from a series of elisions and corruptions of the transliteration of "Saint Nikolaos".
