St Nick
Finnish St Nicholas striding through the snow. Found on Pinterest.
St Nicholas liked to leave coins in people’s shoes — apparently. It’s his saint’s day today, December 6, right in the middle of Sagittarius, the sign which is solely ruled by Jupiter, and it’s hard not to see a bit, OK quite a lot, of Jupiter, in the legend of St Nick and his later avatar Mr S. Claus.
Jupiter is the planet of judgement, justice and judges. This is just what the St Nick does of course. He judges 
little boys and girls. Have you been good? Find sweeties in your boots. Have you been bad? A lump of coal.
And what about the ho ho hos. All that jollity and red-cheeked port-swilling, well it’s jovial (yes that’s as in Jove aka Jupiter).
Then there’s his corpulence. Jupiter is all about expansion right. The twinkle in his eye, the generosity, handing out of presents, for goodness sake; Jupiter is the planet of generosity.
Then there’s his habit of breaking and entering. Jupiter has no respect for boundaries.
The evidence is clear. St Nick, Jupiter: same-same. So if you need an image of Jupiterishness, look no further.
Vintage xmas card
Oh and about those shoes and stockings. Jupiter’s other sign is Pisces, which rules the feet.
It’s a shame his big night for most of us is Christmas Eve – right at the start of Saturn’s month – but maybe that’s just a little adventure in boundary busting too.
Love it! Brilliant as always, Christina!
Hi Christina,
here in the Netherlands we celebrate both : St. Nicolas and Christmas. Lucky us, we get present twice !
For us St. Nicolas is the saint of poor children and of FISHERMAN (how is that for Pisces ??) !!
mimi
In some part of Balkans, he is also celebrated (on 19th december), as protector of children, students, travelers and sailors. Very sagittarian/piscian.
students and travelers, noch!
fishermen!
Right – fiushermen, men, men , men !
mimi
FISHERMEN !!!
mimi
oh that was a jovial reiteration not a saturnine correction. 🙂
Of course I meant : we get presents (plural).
mimi
I love this post! My older sister was born on December 6, and I was born on December 25. My father was from Germany, so we also were visited by both St. Nicholas and Santa Claus. Also, Jupiter is prominent in both of our charts: hers is in the 10th house, conjunct the MC, mine is in the first house, conjunct the Ascendant. No wonder we were the kids who started warbling Christmas carols as soon as we took off our Halloween costumes!
There’s a really interesting book called Planet Narnia, which examines the classic CS Lewis series using the seven medieval planets and their qualities as a guide, and suggesting that this was in fact Lewis’ underlying plan. The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe is Jupiter, and the author uses the novel’s ‘Jupiterianess’ to explain the presence of Father Christmas in the book. The whole premise is fascinating, plausible, and grounded on excellent scholarship.
Here is a link to that http://www.planetnarnia.com/…
Of course, that does explain why Father Christmas turns up.
Michael Ward is local to me I see, at Blackfriars. I’ve had a notion in the past about getting him and the local Holst expert to do back to back lectures.
What a wonderful idea. Do post it if you make that happen, it would be fascinating to hear.
i love this! : Then there’s his habit of breaking and entering. Jupiter has no respect for boundaries.
a fun way to rethink/remember this characteristic 🙂