More than 40 years ago, several parishioners -– most the mothers of young children -- established the St. Nicholas Club to provide Christmas gifts to neighbors who would otherwise go without. Over the years, this ministry has provided literally tens of thousands of gifts for people of all ages, from newborn infants to elders and every age between.   

When things were very different on the Hill, the St. Nicholas Club provided gifts -- both wants (toys and games) and needs (school uniforms and coats) -- for students at St. Peter’s School. It also provided fruit baskets and Christmas plants for our parish elders who were alone over the Christmas season. For a great number of years, all the plants and baskets were delivered personally by our former pastor, Father Michael O’Sullivan. 

As members of the parish became involved with groups supporting our brothers and sisters in Christ, the St. Nicholas Club joined in to provide Christmas gifts. Early on, it partnered with the parish Sunday bag-lunch ministry and provided lunch recipients with items of clothing to see them through cold winter days and nights. Another group long served by the St. Nicholas Club was the Friends of Tyler School (later Jan’s Tutoring House), which received gifts for both students being tutored and their siblings.      

Ever since St. Peter’s was twinned with Notre Dame d’Altagrace in Haiti, parishioners have, through the St. Nicholas Club, contributed funds to purchase water filtration systems, provide scholarships to Notre Dame’s school, and both build and stock its medical clinic. The St. Nicholas Club has provided gifts for newborns and their mothers at the Missionaries of Charity shelter, and for women at Mount Carmel House. After St. Peter’s began supporting the Holy Name food bank, its St. Nicholas Club began providing Christmas gifts for children of that parish.  

St. Peter’s social justice groups and individual parishioners have recommended new needs to the St. Nicholas Club. Groups recently added to the gift list are Good Neighbors Capitol Hill (assisting refugee families) and DC127 (assisting foster families).  

This holiday tradition is one beloved by new and long-time parishioners. It’s one way we strive to live out the parish mission “to be a tangible manifestation of Christ living in the community.” 

The St. Nicholas Club usually announces its presence the weekend after Thanksgiving with a Jesse tree in church, connecting the custom of decorating Christmas trees to the events surrounding Jesus’s birth. The tree gets its name from Isaiah 11:1: “A shoot shall come out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” The tree at St. Peter’s is festooned with colorful tags providing information about the requested gifts as well as an image and verse representing the people, prophecies, and events leading up to the birth of Christ.

Click here for more information about joining this year's St. Nicholas Club.