"Who Is This Guy?" by Georgiana Mueller

It’s that time of year again – children are on their best behavior, making out their wish lists to send for consideration to the North Pole. People are frantically rushing in and out of stores searching aimlessly for the perfect Christmas gift to give to their friends and loved ones.  Christmas is here! Decorations are up and children everywhere are excitedly waiting for the arrival of Santa Claus. But who is this mythological figure who children all around the world believe in and brings a smile and a lightness in step to adults all across the world?

Father Christmas is whom many credit as being the precursor to our present-day Santa Claus.  However, until the 18th century, Father Christmas was a symbol of the Christmas season and not a mythical being. Christmas was seen primarily as a celebration for adult’s entertainment and Father Christmas was not a giver of gifts, but instead presided over festive parties. It wasn’t until the Victorian era (with its emphasis on family life and children) do we start to see images of the Santa Claus we recognize today come into being. But wait, I am skipping over the important part of how Santa Claus actually came into existence.

Long before Father Christmas came into being in England, something called Sinterklaas from the Dutch was spreading across Europe. Sinterklaas can trace its origins to St. Nicholas of Myra, a 4th-century Greek bishop who lived in what is now modern-day Turkey.  Although much like present-day Santa Claus with a full white beard and dressed in red, Sinterklaas, (a contraction from Sint Nikolaas), was a serious figure carrying a shepherd’s staff and wearing the headdress of a Bishop.  Legend has it that St. Nicholas came from a very wealthy family, but never cared much about material goods himself.  When his parents both died, St. Nicholas was left with an inheritance which he then spent helping the poor and doing good deeds. During his lifetime, St. Nicholas performed many miracles. One such story is that St. Nicholas resurrected 3 children who were murdered and then placed in a barrel and pickled by an Innkeeper.  A different story had St. Nicholas finding a father who was about to sell his daughters into slavery or prostitution due to his desperate need for money.  To save the daughters, Saint Nicholas threw purses of gold down the chimney of their home to be used as dowries, so they could marry.  The coins supposedly landed in the girl’s stockings that were drying by the fire. St. Nicholas is typically regarded as a nice old man but not a Catholic saint or attached to another religion. Slowly over time, stories of St. Nikolas began spreading all through Europe and he began to become known as the patron saint of children and sailors.  By the time of the Renaissance, St. Nicholas was the most popular saint in all of Europe. The result of this is all Dutch people tended to celebrate St. Nicholas and what he represents regardless of age and religious beliefs.  

St. Nicholas seems to have first appeared in America in 1773 and 1774 in a New York newspaper that was writing about some Dutch families celebrating the date of his death, which was December 6th.  Stories of St. Nicholas giving gold out to those in need grew into giving gifts to children on the Eve of December 6th.  The celebration includes exchanging gifts and chocolate letters of the recipient’s first initial as well as making fun of your family and loved ones with homemade gag gifts. By the 1820s, stores in America had begun to advertise Christmas shopping and by the 1840s, newspapers were creating a separate section for holiday advertising that would often include images of our current-day Santa Claus. In the 1890s, the Salvation Army was in desperate need of money to pay for the Christmas meals they gave out to the needy.  So, they dressed up unemployed men in Santa Claus suits and sent them out into the streets to ask for donations.  Sound familiar?

But what sealed the fate of our modern-day image of Santa Claus?  A poem in 1822 by Clement Clarke Moore, entitled “An Account from a Visit from St. Nicholas”, otherwise known as “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”  This poem created for people an image of a portly older man, flying from house to house on a sleigh led by eight reindeer, to magically go up and down chimneys leaving presents for little children.  Who wouldn’t believe???