NO, Christmas isn’t about Santa’s birthday.
However, you may be mistaken for
thinking he’s your main man behind the
annual cultural and commercial celebration
which takes over swathes of the world each
December.
It turns out Santa, along with his
reindeers and all the chimney-sneaking,
cookie-biting, brandy-sipping tendencies all
have its origins in disparate sources – from
a real-life monk, to some 19th Century
cartoons.
Firstly, Santa’s origin story can be traced
a long way back to an early Christian
bishop named Nicholas, born to Greek
parents in modern-day Turkey around 280
AD.
As a bishop, his reputation evolved
among the faithful and his legendary
habit of secret gift-giving gave rise to the
traditional model of Santa Claus. His feast
day, on the anniversary of his death, was
marked on December 6.
The name Santa Claus evolved from St
Nicholas’ Dutch nickname, Sinter Klaas, a
shortened form of the Dutch Sint Nikolaas.
In the cultural melting pot of New York in
the late 18th Century, a newspaper reported
on Dutch families gathering to honour
the December 6 anniversary of the Saint’s
death, and later, stories about Sinter Klaas
were popularised by writer Washington
Irving when he wrote that Saint Nicholas
was the patron saint of New York.
Imagery, storytelling, and myth making
around Santa Claus grew. In 1823, the
poem ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas’
was published, which described Santa as a
“jolly old elf” with a portly figure and the
supernatural ability to ascend a chimney
with a nod of his head.
Later, the imagery of a bearded Santa
with a sack full of toys was drawn into
print by an American political cartoonist
Thomas Nast in the late 19th Century.
The origin of the red colour of Father
Christmas’ outfit is a mystery. Nast’s
illustrations in Harper’s Weekly were
printed in black and white. Nast’s Father
Christmas clothes were neither red (as
Coca Cola’s Santa Claus would later be),
nor green (as those of Saint Nicholas
often were), but rather brown with short
bristles, in accordance with the description
contained in Clement Clark Moore’s poem,
‘Twas The Night Before Christmas:
“He was dressed all in fur, from his head
to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with
ashes and soot”
So, Santa really is Saint Nicholas, a
wandering, generous bishop, who gave what
he could to children and those in a tight
spot.
However, like many things about
Christmas, many of his other well-known
traits are a hotch-potch collection and
melding of cultural myths and fairy tales.
Whatever the origins, the magic felt by
many children at Christmas time hinges
on the belief of Santa visiting on Christmas
Eve. True or not, it’s a story worth keeping.
