Growing up Catholic it was always about the birth of Christ, the Nativity, helping others during the season (it's a SEASON for us too!!
) and with all of that we knew about St Nicholas and how he played into Santa Claus. My parents let us make cookies for "Santa" and we did all the traditional stuff that kids to getting ready for an American Christmas, but my mom always stressed the Saint point in it all. That since we were good all year that St Nick would help her to find those special hard to find gifts we put on our lists and she wanted to find for us....kind of stressing that there's always someone looking out for us and helping us along the way. It made sense to us, even at a young age. Even as a very little kid I never bought the whole fat guy in a suit / chimney thing...but I always did and still do beliee the Saints and Angels are with us.
One year at Christmas when I was super little, like 5, I saw my great grandfather in the mall, he had passed away 2 years before. I pulled my mom's arm and told her, she saw him too. We followed him around the corner and poof..he was gone. They're always with us
