Thanks for the thoughts. I'll be going to church in an hour to sing for my names day. Figured I should share some facts about my saint.
1) Nicholas is the Patron Saint of Beer
2) Nicholas is the Patron Saint of Pawn Brokers
3) Nicholas is the Parton Saint of Sailors
4) Nicholas was present at the 1st Ecumenical Council and responded to the Arian heresey by punching Arius in the mouth. He was sumarily deposed that day, but that night, many of the bishops had a dream of the Theotokos handing Nicholas his Stole and Christ handing Nichoals the Gospel. The next day, the bishops all decided that Nicholas should be returned to office.
5) In the slavic Mythological tradition (when the slavs were just getting out of Paganism), Nicholas was married to Helena Konstantina also known as Helen, the mother of Constantine who found the true cross of Christ.
6) Nicholas' metropolis was in need of grain and he went down to the port. He found a ship that was hauling large amounts of grain to Constantinople. Nicholas asked the Captain to allow him to have a small amount of grain but the captain was reluctant to give it to him. Nicholas promised him that when his ship docked at Constantinople he would have as much grain as he started with and would never know that it was gone. The captain agreed and gave Nicholas the grain. When the ship arrived at Constantinople, the grain was accounted for to the nearest measure.
7) For the slavs Nicholas is as important if not slightly more important than Cyril and Mythodius.
8 ) Three sisters were going to get married, but they came from a poor family and their father had no money to pay for their Dowrys. Nicholas went out in the middle of the night and threw a sack of coins into the house for the first sister to get married. A few days later the second sister was going to be married. That night before, Nicholas again threw a sack of money into the house for the second sister to get married. The father was perplexed and decided that he was going to wait around to see who was giving the money to his daughters. That Night, Nicholas went to the house a 3rd time and threw a sack of money into the house for the 3rd sister to get married. The father caught him and asked him, "Fr. Nicholas, why have you been so generous". Nicholas replied, "You must tell no one of what I've done this night."
-Nicholas
