Part four of a series on the history and traditions of Christmas.
The tradition of Santa Claus goes back centuries and is one of the reasons why we give Christmas gifts. Santa Claus has not always been portrayed as we know and love him today. Our Santa is a combination of several traditions from several different countries. The legend of Santa Claus begins with a man by the name of St. Nicholas.
It is said that around the year 280 A.D., there was a man born by the name of Nicolas in a town called Patara in the area now known as the country of Turkey. Nicolas had a big heart, so big that he became a monk and devoted himself to God and religion. Nicolas was born into wealth, and stories soon spread about how he gave away all of his family's money to the poor, the sick, and anyone else he came across who needed it. Soon word spread not only in his homeland but also far and wide about how kind and generous Nicolas was. Nicolas became so famous that he was known as the protector of children (and sailors) everywhere.
What is significant about Nicholas is that at the time he was performing these acts of kindness, he was not a Saint. He was an ordinary man with an extraordinary heart. He cared for his fellow man and was a devout follower of Christianity, modeling his life around it. Because of his good deeds and acts of charity to the less fortunate, he ascended to Sainthood.
For hundreds of years, Europeans celebrated him on December 6, the date of his death, and thousands of European churches were dedicated to him. Some even say that Saint Nick was the most popular saint in all of Europe during the end of the middle ages. After the Reformation period however, widespread practice and worship of St. Nicholas disappeared in European countries that were Protestant, except in Holland where the legend of St. Nicholas continued. St. Nicholas was known as Sint Nikolaas but that was later corrupted to Sinter Klaas.
The tradition of Sinter Klaas was brought to America however by Dutch colonists who settled in New York City, which was called New Amsterdam at the time. Over time, the Dutch legend of the kindly saint combined with old Nordic folktales about a magician who punished naughty children and rewarded good ones with presents to give rise to the stories that now exist about Santa Claus.
Today’s popularity of the images and legend of Santa Claus can be traced to the poem, 'A Visit from St. Nicholas,' written by Clement Clarke Moore in 1822. In that poem, Moore described St. Nicholas as a jolly fellow who flew from house to house in a sleigh pulled by reindeer and waited for children to go to bed on Christmas Eve before he came down the chimney to deliver Christmas presents for them.
Santa began donning the red outfit sometime later in 1863 when the popular magazine Harper's Weekly started publishing cartoons by Thomas Nast that depicted Santa as a cheerful fellow with a large round belly and long white beard who wore a bright red suit that was trimmed with white fur. The red and white-trimmed suit of Santa Claus is believed to be the colors that the original St. Nicholas wore because red and white were the colors of the robes worn by traditional bishops.
In Nast's cartoons, Santa also held a sack, which was filled with toys for boys and girls, over his shoulder. The cartoons also showed Santa reading letters from good boys and girls, working in his workshop with his elves, checking his list to make sure he had all the required toys and even showed his wife, Mrs. Claus.
It is also believed that the Coca Cola Co. played a role in what is regarded as the popular look of Santa Claus today through paintings by artist Haddon Sundblom that were placed in some of the company's advertisement between 1931 and 1964.
Although the original St. Nicholas looked nothing like the Santa Claus we are familiar with in today's American society, what bridges the gap between modern day Santa Claus and the legend of St. Nicholas is the virtue of generosity. This new vision of Santa came long after, but his character was based on the legendary St. Nicholas. How wonderful that his spirit of generosity and kindness live on!
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Author: Anne Jefferson
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