In the Netherlands (see Sinterklaas), Dutch children put out a shoe filled with hay and a carrot for Saint Nicholas' horse.

This tradition is well known and celebrated in Austria (Austrian German: Nikolo), Belgium, Croatia (Croatian: Sveti Nikola), the Czech Republic (Czech: Svatý Mikuláš), north-east France (French: Saint Nicolas), western and southern Germany (German: Sankt Nikolaus), Switzerland (Swiss German: Samichlaus), Hungary (Hungarian: Mikulás), Luxembourg, the Netherlands (Dutch: Sinterklaas), Poland (Polish: Święty Mikołaj), Romania (Romanian: Moș Nicolae), Serbia (Serbian: Свети Никола, Sveti Nikola), Slovakia (Slovak: Svätý Mikuláš), Slovenia (Slovene: Sveti Miklavž), and Ukraine (Ukrainian: Святий Миколай, Sviatyi Mykolai).

In Austria, Czechia, southern Germany, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania and Ukraine, Saint Nicholas often comes with two assistants (see companions of Saint Nicholas): a good angel who gives out presents to good children and a devil or a half-goat, half-demon monster in some legends[3] (Krampus or Knecht Ruprecht in Austria and Germany).

[4][5] On Saint Nicholas Day, they come to the houses where small children live and give them some presents or leave them in shoes that have been left out overnight.

[7] The virgács is a switch resembling a small broom, made with twigs or branches from a bush or willow tree, often painted gold.