Gifts Under the Pillow and the Two Mykolas of Winter and Spring: St. Mykolai’s Day in Ukraine

In Ukraine, some families quietly place a gift under a child’s pillow on a night in early December. The giver is said to be Saint Mykolai (Святий Миколай), Nicholas, who is traditionally said to have served as bishop of Myra in Asia Minor in the 4th century. The Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine (ESU, Енциклопедія Сучасної України) of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine writes that the celebration of this day revived after independence and is especially loved by children.

Until August 2023, this day fell on December 19 in the civil calendar. Since the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (ПЦУ, below “OCU”) and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (УГКЦ, below “UGCC”) moved to a new calendar on September 1, 2023, it falls on December 6 in the calendars of the two churches. The calendar reform itself was covered in our article on Christmas moving from January 7 to December 25 and our article on name days. Here we look at the legend of Saint Mykolai and at where the gift-giving custom is explained as having come from, using encyclopedias and church calendars (as of October 2026).

Nicholas, Bishop of Myra

The “Saint Nicholas” entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (IEU), published by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) at the University of Alberta in Canada, calls Saint Mykolai one of the most popular saints of the Eastern and Western churches, and then writes that “little is known about him.” What is known is that he was bishop of Myra (now in Turkey) in the 4th century and was probably born in Patara, and the entry explains that legends of his charity toward children and of miracles spread throughout Europe.

The ESU’s “Mykolaia” (Миколая) entry (2018) gives, as a well-known story, that for the three daughters of a family that had become poor, Mykolai secretly threw three bags of gold in through the window at night, and the daughters were able to marry. It then writes that the custom of giving children gifts on the night of St. Mykolai apparently comes from this story (the original word is «Очевидно»).

According to the same entry, Mykolai’s relics were moved in 1087 to Bari in southern Italy, and a spring feast was established in memory of this. The IEU also writes that the relics were taken to Bari by Italian sailors in 1087. Veneration in Ukraine is old; the IEU, citing chronicles, says that a church in honor of Saint Mykolai had already been built in Kyiv in the time of Prince Ihor (d. 945).

The Years of Birth and Death Differ by Source

The years of Saint Mykolai’s life are written differently depending on the source. No record survives that would settle on any one of them.

Source	Born	Year of death
IEU, “Saint Nicholas”	Probably born in Patara (no year given)	Not given (bishop of Myra in the 4th century)
ESU, “Mykolaia” (2018)	270, Patara	December 6 (December 19 in the civil calendar), 343
Great Ukrainian Encyclopedia (VUE, Велика українська енциклопедія), “Mykolai Chudotvorets” (Миколай Чудотворець)	About 270 to 275	After 326
OCU, Church Calendar 2026, entry for December 6	—	About 345

From December 19 to December 6

In the church calendar, St. Mykolai’s Day was always December 6. According to the IEU’s “Calendar” entry, the civil calendar switched to the Gregorian calendar on March 1, 1918, but the church continued to use the Julian calendar (Old Style). For this reason, until 2023, winter St. Mykolai fell on December 19 in the civil calendar and spring St. Mykolai on May 22. The IEU’s “Saint Nicholas” entry likewise gives winter as December 19 (December 6 Old Style) and spring as May 22 (May 9 Old Style).

On February 6, 2023, the UGCC announced a decision of its Synod of Bishops and explained that from September 1 all feasts with fixed dates would be celebrated according to the new calendar. As examples, the announcement lists, alongside Christmas (December 25) and Epiphany (January 6), “St. Mykolai — December 6” (Святого Миколая — 6 грудня). The OCU’s Council of Bishops also decided on May 24, 2023 to use the New Julian calendar from September 1.

In the OCU’s Church Calendar 2026, December 6 (a Sunday) is the day of “Holy Hierarch Mykolai, Archbishop of Myra, Wonderworker,” and May 9 (a Saturday) is the day of “the Translation of the relics of the holy wonderworker Mykolai from Myra to Bari (1087)” (our translations of the calendar’s entries). In the calendars of the two churches, winter St. Mykolai has thus become December 6 and spring St. Mykolai May 9.

However, the OCU’s decision allows parishes and monasteries to keep the old calendar if two thirds or more of their members agree. In parishes that use the old calendar, and in other churches, St. Mykolai’s Day still falls on December 19 in the civil calendar.

Not a National Public Holiday

St. Mykolai’s Day is not a national public holiday (day off) in Ukraine. Article 73 of the Labour Code, which lists the public holidays (version of October 23, 2026), lists nine days from New Year on January 1 to Christmas on December 25 as public holidays, and names three religious holidays on which no work is done, Easter, Trinity, and Christmas, but neither December 6 nor December 19 is included. The list of public holidays, and the fact that this article is not applied under martial law, are summarized in our article on Ukraine’s public holidays.

Winter Mykola and Spring Mykola

In the civil calendar, Saint Mykolai appears twice a year. The IEU writes that in Ukrainian folk tradition there are two figures known as Saint Nicholas: “warm Nicholas,” celebrated in the spring, and “old Nicholas,” commemorated in the winter. The ESU also lists two holidays, “winter Mykola” and “spring Mykola.” In Ukrainian, the saint’s name is written both Миколай (Mykolai) and Микола (Mykola).

What follows are the legends and customs recorded in the encyclopedias. They do not show how far they continue in households today.

• Spring Mykola was regarded as the patron of agriculture and was said to walk the fields after winter “drying places over-damp, and dampening those over-dry” (IEU). On this day, horses were led out for their first night’s grazing, sheep were sheared, and buckwheat was sown. In the Kyiv region and Podilia a feast known as nykol’shchyna was held on May 22 (IEU).
• Winter Mykola was said to bring the first snow “by shaking his beard,” and was regarded as the patron of spinning. On his feast day, yarns and thread were brought to church “to add to his beard” (IEU).
• The Hutsuls called winter St. Mykola, spring St. Yurii, summer St. Petro, and autumn St. Dmytro (ESU). In the Kharkiv region the three days of December 17 to 19 were called “Mykola’s holidays,” and kutia and a stewed-fruit drink (uzvar) were made (ESU). In the Carpathians they said, “The weather on Mykola’s day will be the weather at Christmas” (ESU).

Gifts Under the Pillow

According to the ESU, St. Mykolai’s Day, whose celebration revived after independence, has become loved in all regions of Ukraine, and especially by the children who receive gifts on this day. The ESU writes that children write letters to St. Mykolai and that in many towns the season of Christmas and New Year celebrations begins on this day, with fir trees lit up. In 2018, when this entry was written, that day was December 19.

Where Did the Gift-Giving Custom Come From?

On the origin of this custom and the area where it spread, the two encyclopedias write somewhat differently.

The ESU says that the custom of giving children something on St. Mykolai’s Day “did not exist in Ukraine before” and writes that it arose in medieval Germany. In Germany, children were given nuts, dried fruit, sweet bread, and the like in their polished shoes, and children who had not obeyed were given twigs. The custom spread from Germany to Austria, the Netherlands, Czechia, Slovakia, and Poland, and “probably” passed from there to Ukrainian lands, according to the ESU. As support for this, the ESU points out that the custom of putting gifts for children under the pillow survived mainly in Right-Bank Ukraine (west of the Dnipro), which long belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Річ Посполита).

The IEU writes that in Western Ukraine gifts were given to children on the eve of the feast day. The same entry also records that the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church encouraged ritual plays and games featuring Saint Nicholas, an angel, and the devil, which exhorted children to do good deeds, that some had scripts by professional authors, and that they were often staged by amateur theaters.

“Right-Bank Ukraine” and “Western Ukraine” overlap in part but are not the same area. Neither encyclopedia gives a specific record of the year from which the custom was practiced.

The Soviet Era and Ded Moroz at New Year

The ESU’s “Mykolaia” entry writes that during the Soviet era, with its militant atheism, St. Mykolai’s Day was not celebrated, but that among the rural population, especially in Western Ukraine, which belonged to the USSR for a much shorter time, the tradition was well preserved.

Around the same time, the scene of gift-giving appears in New Year celebrations. According to the ESU’s “New Year” entry (2021), New Year was included in the Soviet calendar of official holidays and was built up as an occasion for political and ideological education, in place of the church’s Christmas. In the mid-1930s, after an article setting out the policy by Postyshev, secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine, the public use of the New Year fir tree was permitted. The exchange of New Year gifts, parties for children, and masquerade balls spread, and Ded Moroz (Дід Мороз, “Grandfather Frost”) and Snihuronka (Снігуронька, the Snow Maiden) appeared in them.

The IEU’s “New Year” entry (a reprint of the 1993 print edition) also writes that Grandfather Frost and the Snow Nymph appeared at New Year meetings, but it says the New Year tree was introduced in the early 1930s, which differs from the ESU’s “mid-1930s.”

Putting the two encyclopedias side by side, it reads as though, in the Soviet era, the scene of giving gifts to children moved from the saint’s feast day to New Year. However, none of the encyclopedia entries confirmed for this article states plainly that St. Mykolai was “replaced” by Ded Moroz. Older New Year customs are covered in our article on Malanka.

St. Mykolai, Ded Moroz, and Santa Claus

Old Names and New Names

• Names as a saint: the VUE’s heading is “Mykolai Chudotvorets” (Миколай Чудотворець, Mykolai the Wonderworker), and it gives as other names “St. Mykolai,” “Mykolai Uhodnyk” (Миколай Угодник), and “Holy Hierarch Mykolai” (святитель Миколай).
• Folk names: the IEU writes “old Nicholas” for winter and “warm Nicholas” for spring, and the ESU writes “winter Mykola” and “spring Mykola.” The Hutsuls called winter itself St. Mykola (ESU).
• Name of the holiday: the ESU’s heading is “Mykolaia” (Миколая), a way of referring to St. Mykolai’s Day.
• The Soviet New Year figures: Ded Moroz (Дід Мороз) and Snihuronka (Снігуронька).
• The English-speaking figure: Santa Claus. The ESU writes that in English-speaking countries, especially the United States, Mykolai is identified with Santa Claus.

Putting the three figures side by side gives the following.

	St. Mykolai	Ded Moroz	Santa Claus
When he appears	The night before December 6 (OCU and UGCC calendars; until August 2023, December 19 in the civil calendar)	New Year	Christmas Eve
What it is based on	A saint said to be the 4th-century bishop of Myra (IEU, ESU)	Appeared in the New Year celebrations of the Soviet era (ESU, IEU)	The legend of St. Nicholas (Sinterklaas). Together with the custom of giving children gifts on December 6, it was brought by the Dutch to New Amsterdam (now New York) (Britannica)
Where gifts are put, as it appears in the sources	Under the child’s pillow (ESU)	— (not described in the sources)	The legend that he comes down the chimney and leaves gifts (Britannica)

Timeline: How St. Mykolai’s Day Has Changed

Year	Event	Source
4th century	Nicholas is said to have served as bishop of Myra (years of birth and death differ by source)	IEU, ESU, VUE
1087	The relics are moved from Myra to Bari. The spring feast (May 9 Old Style) commemorates this	IEU, ESU, OCU Church Calendar 2026
March 1, 1918	The Central Rada switches the civil calendar to the Gregorian calendar. The church continues with the Julian calendar, and winter St. Mykolai falls on December 19 and spring on May 22 in the civil calendar	IEU “Calendar”
1930s	The New Year fir tree is brought into public places, and Ded Moroz appears in New Year events (the start is the early 1930s per the IEU, the mid-1930s per the ESU)	IEU “New Year,” ESU “New Year”
From 1991	After independence, the celebration of St. Mykolai’s Day revives and spreads to all regions	ESU “Mykolaia”
February 1-2, 2023	The UGCC’s Synod of Bishops decides to celebrate fixed-date feasts according to the new calendar from September 1 (“St. Mykolai — December 6” in the announcement of February 6)	UGCC announcement
September 1, 2023	The two churches move to the new calendar. Winter St. Mykolai becomes December 6 and spring becomes May 9	UGCC announcement, OCU decision

In 2026, December 6 is a Sunday in the OCU’s calendar. Whether a gift is put under the pillow on the night before December 6 or before December 19 can differ by the church a family attends and by the household.