THE SANTABLOG SERIES 2025
DAY 2
Press play on a song before you scroll. Let that Christmas feeling flow Not a cheesy advert song, just something that hits you in the chest.Got it? Cool. Let’s go.
Before Christmas turned into flashing lights, shopping queues, and stressful Amazon baskets, it began with a man who walked dusty streets long before there was even a whisper of Santa Claus.
His story isn’t shiny or sugar-coated.
It’s rough, real, and very human, which makes it even more powerful.
So today, let’s go back.
Way back.
Back to a time before reindeer, sleigh bells, Coca-Cola adverts, and big red suits.
Back to a quiet corner of the world where a young man named Nicholas of Myra did something radical…
He helped people… in secret.
Not for applause.
Not for credit.
Not for a photo on Instagram, Facebook, tiktok, likes or popularity.
He did it just because he couldn’t stand the thought of someone suffering when he could do something about it.
And honestly?
I wish that part of Christmas never got lost.
The World Nicholas Lived In Was Harsh
This wasn’t Victorian England with carols and plum puddings.
This was fourth-century Turkey, when life was brutal, short, and unfair.
No welfare system.
No charities handing out free meals.
No Christmas drives or food banks.
If you were poor… you were poor.
If you were starving… you starved.
If you lost a parent… your life instantly became a mountain.
And yet, in the middle of all this harshness, there was this one bloke… young, quiet, stubborn in the best way… who saw suffering and thought,
“Not on my watch.”
Not only that… he did something even rarer…
He helped people without getting credit for it.
The story you probably know is the classic one…
A father with three daughters was so poor he couldn’t afford dowries.
In those days, that meant the girls’ futures were ruined… no marriage, no safety, no stability. Some versions even say it could’ve pushed them into slavery or worse.
Nicholas heard about it.
And instead of lecturing the man, or telling the girls to “get on with it,” he snuck over at night and threw bags of gold through the window.
He didn’t knock.
He didn’t wait for thanks.
He didn’t demand recognition.
He helped… then vanished into the night.
And that moment… that selfless, nameless kindness… that is where we find the first spark of Santa Claus.
The real Santa wasn’t flashy.
He wasn’t loud.
He wasn’t looking for approval.
He helped because it broke his heart not to.
But here’s the thing nobody ever tells you…
The gold-through-the-window story was just one night in Nicholas’s life.
He didn’t retire after that and think, “Job done.”
Nicholas spent his entire life doing what everyone else wished they had the courage to do.
Let me tell you what the history books don’t shout about… the reason he truly became a legend.
THE MANY DEEDS OF NICHOLAS… PROOF HE WAS A REAL-LIFE SANTA
People imagine saints as soft, gentle, floating-around-in-halos types.
Nicholas wasn’t like that at all.
He was kind.
He was compassionate.
But he was also tough, fearless, and willing to walk straight into danger if it meant protecting someone.
He confronted corrupt officials… literally stopped an execution
One day, three innocent men were about to be killed because a corrupt politician wanted them gone.
Nicholas didn’t stay quiet.
He didn’t pray quietly in a corner.
He marched to the execution site, pushed through the crowd, grabbed the executioner’s sword mid-swing, threw it on the floor, and then turned around and publicly exposed the corrupt official.
Imagine that.
One man.
Against power.
Against the system.
Against armed guards.
He didn’t flinch.
He didn’t hesitate.
That is who Nicholas was.
He fed entire towns during a famine.
A brutal winter.
People starving.
Merchants refusing to release grain because it would cost them money.
Nicholas walked down to the docks, saw a huge shipment of grain, and asked the sailors to unload some for the starving people.
They said no… it was counted stock for the emperor.
Nicholas told them, “Give what you can. You will not lose a single measure.”
And somehow… he was right.
When the ship reached its destination, every single sack was still full.
True miracle?
Clever redistribution?
Pure luck?
Doesn’t matter, does it?
What matters is people survived because he acted.
He protected sailors caught in deadly storms, or so the stories go. Truth or myth or even just hope.
Nicholas became known as the protector of sailors because of so many stories where people claimed he saved them from shipwrecks or storms.
Whether he physically appeared or they just felt his presence, sailors believed, “Nicholas watches over us.”
That says a lot about the man he was.
He rescued kidnapped children.
Some versions of this story were twisted, darkened, or exaggerated over the centuries. But the heart of it is this…
Nicholas protected children.
He fought for the vulnerable.
He gave people hope in the darkest situations.
Even when legend got carried away, the message stayed the same…
He was the one who showed up.
He gave to the poor for his entire life.
Not once ortwice. Not even occasionally.
His whole life was built on quiet generosity.
Paying off debts.
Supporting widows.
Leaving money on doorsteps.
Helping orphans.
Giving secretly.
Funding rescues.
Sharing whatever he had.
He didn’t do one good deed and call it a day.
He lived as if kindness was oxygen.
That’s why his story didn’t fade into history like thousands of others.
SO WHY DID NICHOLAS BECOME SANTA?
Because the people who knew him saw something rare…
A man who refused to walk past suffering.
A man who believed every life mattered.
A man who didn’t wait to be thanked.
A man who didn’t look away when things got ugly.
He was brave.
He was bold.
He was compassionate.
He was relentless.
He was, in the most human, most imperfect, most real way, the closest thing the world ever had to Santa Claus.
And as the years passed, people kept telling his stories.
Then adding to them.
Then protecting them.
Then building traditions around them.
Shoes left out.
Gifts given in secret.
Kindness passed on.
Hope shared.
All because of him.
A real man.
A real story.
A real spark in the dark.
And that’s what I want you to take from today.
WHAT NICHOLAS MEANS FOR US NOW?
You don’t need money to be generous.
You don’t need power to be brave.
You don’t need recognition to change someone’s life.
You just need to care.
Because even the smallest act of kindness, the smallest, might ripple farther than you will ever know.
Nicholas never saw the impact of his actions.
He never knew he’d become a global symbol of winter kindness.
He never knew children across the world would celebrate him for thousands of years, he wouldn’t have even thought anyone would remember his name once he was gone.
He just did what he believed was right, one small action at a time.
And that?
That’s the real Christmas spirit.
This christmas, I ask of you… become a new version of Saint Nicholas of Myra this year… just one little good deed can change someones life for the better. Do it for yourself and for someone else, not for likes, not for views, not for attention or validation. Do it just because you can. We all have a saint Nick in all of us.
Before you head off, do me one favour…
Let what you’ve read today settle in. Let it breathe and stir in your mind.
Come back tomorrow and let me try again to make you think, smile, feel something pure.
You never know… this December might surprise you. Hopefully I will, I’ll certainly try.
🎅THEPLAINANDSIMPLEGUY🎅
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- The SantaBlog Series, Day 20. (The Small Moments That Matter)
- The SantaBlog Series, Day 19. (What Still Remains)
- The SantaBlog Series, Day 18. (How Santa Became What We Know Today)
- The SantaBlog Series, Day 17. (Christmas Is What We Choose to Be)
- The SantaBlog Series, Day 16. (Why We Still Believe in Christmas)
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[…] helped people and sparked something bigger than he ever knew. If you missed that one, it’s hereTHE SANTABLOG SERIES, DAY 2. (The Real Saint Nicholas… The Man Who Started It All), so I don’t need to go into that too much… and honestly, it sets the foundation for […]
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