St. Nicholas ushers in the season

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In many communities across south Louisiana, the churches have long been among the most important elements in creating a sense of place — helping to mark a community as “home” and serving as the place where local traditions are kept alive.
That’s particularly so in the German community of Roberts Cove in Acadia Parish, and particularly so at the feast of St. Nicholas, Dec. 6.
Roberts Cove historian Reinhart Kondert (A History of the Germans of Roberts Cove, 1880-2007, Center for Louisiana Studies, 2008), notes, for example, that St. Leo the Great Church is “the most important unifying force” in the community and that it “acts as a magnet” to regularly bring together current parishioners and “all the dispersed descendants of the original settlers.”
That, Kondert says, is because religious ceremonies are one of the important ways that “specific aspects of the German culture are perpetuated.” Local customs associated with births and marriages and deaths reflect Roberts Cove’s German connections, he says, but the most popular of the religious holidays is the St. Nicholas Day celebration.
German immigrants brought St. Nicholas traditions to Louisiana in the 1880s. For many years, the fête was a raucous event more like Mardi Gras than Christmas, but since the 1950s it has become a much gentler and a much loved tradition.
The celebration actually begins late in the afternoon of Dec. 5, St. Nicholas Eve, when the pastor and members of the choir gather at the church. One of the choir members is dressed in bishop’s robes and represents St. Nicholas, who was Bishop of Myra in what is now a part of Turkey beginning in the year 305.
St, Nicholas is traditionally accompanied by his helper Schwarze Peter (Black Peter) and, in recent times by Santa Claus.
The addition of the jolly old elf is not surprising, according to anthropologist Rocky Sexton, who did a study of the holiday some years ago, when you consider that “the St. Nicholas celebration began to be celebrated in Louisiana at a time when the character Santa Claus ...  was becoming a popular culture icon in American society.”
St. Nicholas and his entourage go from house to house during the evening distributing candy to good children. As Kondert describes it, “St. Nicholas’s arrival is heralded ... by the ringing of bells and the singing of carols in both English and German. The singing continues as the bishop walks among the children asking them whether they have been good.”
Children who say “yes” get candy from St. Nicholas; should any say “no,” they would get sticks from Black Peter. But that happens so rarely that Black Peter doesn’t even carry sticks anymore.
According to Sexton’s study, the celebration “represents a meaningful synthesis of old, new, and modified elements,” which offer a “balance between stability and change, between the enduring and the novel” and has resulted in “a uniquely Louisiana German custom.”
Happily, Kondert notes, “The celebration of St. Nicholas’ Day is so popular that it appears in little danger of dying out.”
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, Cajuns and Other Characters, is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589