St. Nicholas Day 2026: Food and Where to Celebrate

St. Nicholas Day is Sunday 6 December 2026. St. Nicholas Day on 6 December is an early winter children's feast across northern and central Europe, with shoes or boots left out for small gifts. Its food is spiced biscuits, chocolate letters, saint-shaped sweet breads and, in the Balkans, a fish feast.

Source: Saint Nicholas Day.

Also known as Saint Nicholas Day, Sinterklaas, Nikolaustag, Nikolaus, Saint-Nicolas, Mikolajki, Nikulden, Svatý Mikuláš, Mikulas, Sveti Nikola, Nikoljdan.

What people eat for St. Nicholas Day

Kruidnoten and pepernoten

Netherlands and Belgium

Small, round, gingerbread-like spiced cookies that Sinterklaas's helpers throw into the crowd and families throw around the house on Sinterklaas eve.

Source: Sinterklaas, Kruidnoten.

Chocolate letters

Netherlands

Each person receives their own initial made of chocolate, on Sinterklaas eve on 5 December or on the morning of 6 December.

Source: Chocolate letter.

Dish guide: Graeter's French-pot black raspberry chocolate chip Dish guide: Churros con chocolate Dish guide: Bristol hot chocolate Vasmacska KávéZooBudapest Du Pain et des IdéesParis BernachonLyon

Speculaas

Netherlands and Belgium

A spiced biscuit built on cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Its forerunners, the klaaskoeken, were traditionally eaten during Sinterklaas in seventeenth-century Amsterdam.

Source: Speculaas.

Stutenkerl (Grittibaenz)

Germany, Austria and Switzerland

A sweet yeast bread shaped like a man, often with raisin eyes and a clay pipe, made for Saint Nicholas in German-speaking countries.

Source: Stutenkerl.

Nikulden fish feast

Bulgaria

In Bulgaria, 6 December is Nikulden, when families gather for a meal of fish, usually a carp wrapped in dough called ribnik, with two blessed loaves of ceremonial bread that the host breaks at the table.

Source: Saint Nicholas Day.