History of Santa Claus: Saint or Elf?
St Nicholas of Myra
HISTORY OF SANTA CLAUS
December 6 is “Saint Nicholas Day.”
The name Santa Claus is a kind of a contraction for Saint Nicholas. The German name Sankt Nikolaus can be pronounced San’t(a) ni-KLOuse (sounding like house.)
Origin of St. Nicholas
He was born in the late 3rd century, perhaps in A.D. 270. Nicholas became a bishop in Greece and gained distinction in the councils of the church. He was especially famed for unexpected gifts and later associated with the giving of presents during the season at the end of the year.
“I am Nicholas, a sinner, Nicholas, servant of Christ Jesus”
the old saint would say. He was imprisoned during the great persecutions of Christians under the Roman Emperor Diocletian in A.D. 303 but freed by the decree of Emperor Constantine. After that, he served as Bishop in Myra for another thirty years. Nicholas participated in the famous ecumenical church Council of Nicaea in 325. He died on December 6, about 343, and the Feast of St. Nicholas is now held on that day.
Gifts of St Nicholas
Many stories are told of his kindness, such as the story of the poor man and his three daughters. To save the girls from being sold into prostitution for want of dowries, St. Nicholas dropped a bag full of gold down the man’s chimney. It landed in one of the stockings the eldest daughter had hung up to dry. Now she could be married.
The other two daughters quickly hung up stockings for St. Nicholas to fill with gold so that they, too, could soon be married. By the way, the three golden globes of the pawnshop are attributed to this story.
Santa Claus in Europe
He seems to have been adopted by the Netherlands as the patron saint of children. There, on St. Nicholas Eve, they leave their wooden shoes, or sabots, filled with hay for the Saint’s white horse. He is real to children the world over, who await his annual visit under various names such as Kris Kringler, Weihnachtsmann, Father Christmas, Saint Nick, La Befana, and Yule Tomten.
Santa Claus in England
Spirit of Christmas Present, A Christmas Carol
While Charles Dickens never mentions Santa by name in his 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, the “Spirit of Christmas Present” is the embodiment of all the good of the season, though with a Victorian slant.
Father Christmas Letters
A hundred years ago, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote The Father Christmas Letters to the delight of his children. They were a collection of letters written and illustrated by Tolkien between 1920 and 1943 each Christmas, delivered as a letter with illustrated stamps from the North Pole. They describe the adventures of Father Christmas and his North Pole friends. The letters occasionally make reference to World War II and suggest inspiration for parts of his later Lord of the Rings books.
While initially not distributed outside the family, they were edited and published in 1976 by his daughter-in-law Baillie Tolkien, wife of Christopher Tolkien.
Santa Claus in America
In 1809 the American author Washington Irving, under the pen name Diedrich Knickerbocker, wrote “A History of New York,” wherein Saint Nicholas, a jolly personage smoking a Dutch pipe, skimmed over the treetops in a wagon and dropped presents down the chimneys.
Knickerbocker St Nicholas, 1862 edition
A few years later, in 1823, Clement C. Moore reputedly wrote a poem for his children known as “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” but more commonly called “The Night Before Christmas.” In the poem, he writes:
“He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf.”
However, Don Foster, in his book “Author Unknown,” makes a case that Henry Livingston actually penned it in 1807 or 1808 and published it anonymously, with Moore claiming authorship in 1837. Many are unaware that the term Santa Claus was never used in the poem. However, the reindeer are there, a part of the legend undoubtedly developed in America, probably by Scandinavians in the United States.
Depiction of Santa Claus
Thomas Nast Santa, 1862
During the Christmas season of 1862, the German-born American cartoonist Thomas Nast drew a picture of Santa Claus for Harper’s Weekly at the time of the Civil War. Nast combined his native German traditions of Saint Nicholas with other German folk traditions of elves in creating the image, seen right. His various pictures of Santa Claus ran through 1866, firmly cementing the image in the American mind. The name Santa Claus also became more familiar to American ears than the German Sankt Niklaus or Dutch Sinterklaas.
Finally, in the 1930s that the now-familiar American Santa image solidified. The artist Haddon Sundblom began Coca-Cola Santa advertisements running for thirty-five years, finally establishing Santa as an icon of contemporary commercial culture. This Santa was not an elf but a man — jolly and wearing the now-familiar white fur-trimmed red suit.
There is an alternative view. Some believe Santa Claus was originally Polish. North Polish.
Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com
Thank you, Bill. This helps alleviate concerns that Santa = (a transposed) Satan as I was a taught by many (well-meaning) Christians growing up.
I had no idea Santa Clause was at the Council of Nicaea! Way cool!
Finally, I have more motivation to perpetuate (a more accurate) tradition regarding Santa to my children.