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It is believed that Santa Claus originated with the birth of St. Nicholas approximately 270 A.D., along the Mediterranean coast of northern Turkey. According to one account, Nicholas was born to a wealthy, childless couple after thirty years of marriage and was orphaned at the age of nine. Reared by guardians thereafter, he developed a strong sympathy for the poor and needy and devoted a great deal of his time to providing food, clothing and often money to the underprivileged. Much of his gift giving was accomplished in secret and, invariably, at night. A story often told of the young St. Nicholas involves the three daughters of an impoverished nobleman who was not able to provide them with dowries. Without dowries they had no hope of suitors. Out of desperation one of the girls volunteered to sell herself into slavery in order to provide marriage portions for her two sisters. Informed of their difficulties, Nicholas came by one night and tossed a small bag of gold down the chimney or through the open window of the eldest girl’s bedroom where, according to the legends, it fell into a stocking hanging up to dry. Shortly thereafter the eldest daughter was married. This same act of generosity was repeated for the other two daughters with equally happy results. While still in his teens, Nicholas became the Bishop of Myra, subsequently to be identified in early manuscripts as a saint and miracle worker. Destined to become patron saint of children, Russia, bankers, sailors, pawnbrokers, vagabonds and thieves, when Nicholas died, probably on the sixth day of December around the year 340 A.D., he was well on his way to becoming universally revered as St. Nicholas of Myra. The practice of bringing gifts in the name of St. Nicholas probably began in France at the start of the twelfth century. The fifth of December, proclaimed the Eve of St. Nicholas, was the time when nuns would leave gifts at the doorstep for the small children of poor families. The custom spread rapidly into other parts of Europe and was soon being celebrated by both rich and poor alike. But it was not until 1626 that St. Nicholas made his way across the Atlantic to North America. He came in the form of a figurehead on the prow of a Dutch ship, The Good Housewife, filled with settlers from Holland. Their destination was New Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan Island. It was here that St. Nicholas’s foothold in the New World was firmly established. Even after New Amsterdam fell to the British in 1664, the Dutch persisted in the custom of celebrating St. Nicholas Eve. Popular pronunciation over the years managed to contract Saint Nicholas into Sinterklaas, which was eventually corrupted to Sancte Claus. With Sancte Claus now on the scene, could Santa Claus be far behind?
Santa Claus Santa Clause is known by different names all around the world: Father Christmas in England, Babbo Natale in Italy, Sinter Klass in Holland, Jul Tomte (which means “little Christmas man”) in Sweden and Weihnachtsmann and Christkindl or Christ Child in Germany. In Russia they once spoke of the Miracle Maker but now simply refer to him as Grandfather Frost. The Chinese have their Lam Khoong-Khoong, meaning Nice Old Father, and the Japanese have Hoteiosho, who has eyes in both the back and front of his head and carries a big bag of toys. On January fifth, Epiphany Eve in Italy, Santa Claus is a woman called Befana, who comes down the chimney bearing gifts for good little girls and boys. The three people that are generally credited with the further transformation of St. Nicholas, the gift-bearing good Bishop of Myra to our own beloved gift-bearing Santa Claus. They are the author and humorist Washington Irving, Clement Clarke Moore, a professor at a theological seminary, and the renowned political cartoonist Thomas Nast. Under the name of Diedrich Knickerbocker, Washington Irving, author of such favorite tales as “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” published his beloved A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty. Along with a great deal of gentle humor about the Dutch in New York, Irving also dealty with their enormous affection for St. Nicholas. In his physical description of the beloved saint, the bishop’s robes are replaced by more traditional Flemish attire. Instead of the mitred hat of a bishop, there was a wide-brimmed hat, hose and a long Dutch clay pipe. And Irving spoke of the saint flying about in a wagon over the rooftops of New Amsterdam, dropping gifts into the chimneys of little children. The author describes him as visiting on only one night a year and making his entrance via the chimney. This comes close to our own conception of Santa Claus, but it was not until 1822 when Clement Clarke Moore penned his timeless poem, “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” that Saint really took on the appearance of the familiar figure love by millions today. During the period of the Civil War, however, that the political cartoonist Thomas Nast produced a figure that became affixed forever in the minds of people as Santa Claus. Nast drew his first santa Claus for the cover of Harper’s Weekly, the leading newspapers of the day. More a recruiting poster of the Union side during the Civil War than a decorative Christmas feature, Santa was pictured by Nast as a figure dressed in stars and strips dispersing gifts. Between the years of 1864 and 1886 Nast’s drawings of Santa Clause, eagerly awaited by a large public, appeared annually. In these he generally appears as a portly, bewhiskered, befurred old gent climbing in and out of chimneys with an enormous sack of toys on his back. Up until 1886 Nast had always drawn Santa in black ink. Asked by a publisher to produce color drawings of Santa for a book, Nast had the brilliant inspiration of giving him a bright red suit with white ermine trim. Jolly, plump, bewhiskered and all in red, here at last was the Santa Claus we know so well today.
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