But for many children across Europe, this date signals St Nicholas Day - an event as exciting as Christmas Day itself.
In Holland, for instance, children leave clogs and shoes out on 5 December to be filled with presents by St Nicholas - or Sinterklaas - overnight. In the morning, Sinterklaas visits a city or town in the Netherlands, leading a procession on a white horse.
In other countries including Austria, Germany, Belgium, Croatia and regions of France, their versions of the St Nicholas figure come to deliver treats to the good little boys and girls too, with toys, chocolates, cookies, oranges, nuts and marzipan among the goodies brought.
Even in the UK there are special church-organised St Nicholas events, including a parade in Canterbury, a celebration at St Nicholas Cathedral in Newcastle and a festival at the Holy Trinity in London's Sloane Square.
Yet despite the popularity of this festival so close to our own shores, and while many of us probably have a vague recollection of our own Father Christmas being somehow related to St Nick, the odds are we know very little about the legend of St Nicholas.
So who is this festive saint and why is he celebrated on 6 December?
While much of his story is shrouded in mystery, what is known is that Nicholas was born around 260AD in Asia Minor, now Turkey. He became bishop of Myra, in the present day Antalya Province, and is believed to have been persecuted and imprisoned for his faith by the Roman emperor Diocletian.
He died in 343, probably on 6th December, before in 1087 his bones were stolen by Italian merchants and taken to Bari, on the heel of Italy.
Along the way a series of legends have sprung up about his beneficence: how, the son of wealthy parents, he gave much of his inheritance away, stilled a storm to rescue a ship of stricken sailors and saved three poor sisters from prostitution by secretly dropping bags of gold down their chimneys into a stocking (sound familiar?).
Over time Nicholas has become the patron saint of everything from children to the unjustly imprisoned, sailors, scholars, brides, perfumers and even people being mugged. During the middle ages the legend of his golden gift to the three sisters turned into the anonymous giving of food to the poor.
As for how the old bishop turned into the fat, jolly, rosy-cheeked Father Christmas, or Santa Claus, that we know and love today? Most important to this transformation was probably the arrival of the Dutch in America, taking their 6th December customs with them.
Their Sinterklaas became Santa in local dialect, and soon imagery abounded of a kindly saint hanging toys in stockings by fireplaces. In 1823 the poem by Clement C. Moore - now known as The Night Before Christmas but then called A Visit from St Nicholas - put into bold relief the jelly-bellied, dimpled, bearded chap he is now.
Shortly afterwards the New York caricaturist Thomas Nast penned a series of cartoons for Harper's Weekly featuring a fat Santa in a red cloak, before in the 1930s ads for Coca Cola really cemented the image by depicting him in his scarlet coat trimmed with fur.
For Canon Jim Rosenthal, founder of the St Nicholas Society, it's high time St Nick was remembered by everyone who celebrates Christmas: "I always think it's sad that people are ignorant of the origins of our customs. Santa Claus is fine, but St Nicholas is so much better. Like us, he is real."
Travel writer Jeremy Seal, author of Nicholas: The Epic Journey from Saint to Santa Claus, agrees his story deserves better recognition: "Nicholas seems to be a sensible person that made his name from giving material, practical assistance.
"That aspect has resonated through the ages because material assistance is something we all need and can relate to... You can select any number of stories about him, but most have in common his bringing help to people."
He adds: "That is the lesson we can take out of this. Gifts just for the sake of giving to our loved ones who have enough may not reflect what St. Nicholas was all about".
Did you know..?
- A painting of St Nicholas, The Charity of St Nicholas of Bari, by Italian Renaissance artist Girolamo Macchietti hangs in the National Gallery in London - showing him poised to deliver the bags of gold to the three poor sisters
- Manchester University scientists found St Nicholas to have a broken nose and a white beard after recreating his face using X-rays of his crypt
- Among the legends is that he resurrected three boys killed by a psychotic butcher, after they had been chopped up, salted in a barrel and prepared to be sold as ham during a period of famine
- The tangerines traditionally left as gifts in the stockings of children who have been good allude to St Nicholas's emblem – three balls of gold
- Some experts claim that the body of St Nick was actually moved to County Kilkenny in Ireland in the 12th century, and buried in the now ruined Church of St Nicholas, Jerpoint
- Our Father Christmas is born of the St Nicholas legend - but also crossed with that of the Norse god Odin, who rode through the winter world in a blue cloak and long white beard bringing gifts or punishments as appropriate.
