Did You Know Thursday: Santa Claus

Did you know that the legend of Santa Claus can actually be traced back hundreds of years to a Bishop named St. Nicholas?

Did you know Thursday: Santa Clause. Did you know that the legend of Santa Claus can actually be traced back hundreds of years to a bishop names St. Nicholas? Well it can! — “Portrait showing Saint Nicholas of Myra. First half of the 13th century.” Soure: Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai (Egypt) / K. Weitzmann: “Die Ikone” Wikimedia.

It is believed that Nicholas was born sometime around 280 A.D. in what is modern-day Turkey. St. Nicholas was featured in many legends because of his piety and kindness. You see Nicholas was a very rich man and inherited a lot of money at a young age. He also had a reputation for giving secret gifts to those in need.It is believed that he gave his inherited wealth away and traveled the countryside helping the sick and poor. Over the years, St. Nicholas’s popularity spread and by the Renaissance he was regarded as the most popular saint in Europe.

Sinter Klaus? Who? The question remains, how did the jolly old St. Nick that we’ve come to love evolved from the Bishop St. Nicholas, protector of children and sailors? Well it took until about the 18^thCentury for Santa to make it to America. In December of 1773, and again in 1774, a newspaper in the new world reported that groups of Dutch families had assembled to honor the anniversary of St. Nicholas’ death on December 6th.

To the Dutch he was known as Sinter Klaus (Sinterklaas), and in 1809, Washington Irving helped to promote his stories when he stated that St. Nicholas was the patron saint of New York in his book, The History of New York. St. Nicholas Day is still celebrated on December 6 (it was a Thursday this year and I probably should have made this post the Did you know Thursday, ah well, hindsight.) Today, we celebrate by leaving small gifts/tokens in stockings to celebrate the day. And sadly, I don’t think most people know the history behind this tradition.

But there are other versions of Santa Claus that are popular in other parts of the world as well. For instance, Christkind or Kris Kringle delivered presents to good Swiss and German children.English legends suggest that Father Christmas visits each home on Christmas Eve to fill children’s stockings with holiday treats. In Scandinavia, a jolly elf named Jultomten was believed to bring gifts in his sleigh drawn by goats. Pere Noel fills the shoes of French children. It Italy they believe a kindly witch, called La Befana, rides her broomstick down the chimneys of Italian homes to deliver toys into the stockings of lucky children.

You may be wondering, ok but where did Rudolph and the other 8 reindeer come from? Well, Rudolph the red-nosed sensation was in fact the creation of Robert L. May. May was a copywriter at the Montgomery Ward department store and in 1939 he wrote a Christmas story that was supposed to help bring traffic to the store. Little did he know, the most famous reindeer of all would become a Christmas staple.

But did you know that Rudolph and Santa’s other 8 reindeer might be ladies? That’s right, as it turns out only female reindeer maintain their antlers through winter. By the time Christmas rolls around each year male reindeer generally discard their antlers and regrow them in spring.

Where did the tradition of hanging the stockings by the fire with care in hopes that the jolly guy in the red suit would leave presents, come from? Well according to whychirstmas,

“There was a poor man who had three daughters. The man was so poor that he did not have enough money for a dowry, so his daughters couldn’t get married. (A dowry is a sum of money paid to the bridegroom by the bride’s parents on the wedding day. This still happens in some countries, even today.) One night, Nicholas secretly dropped a bag of gold down the chimney and into the house (This meant that the oldest daughter was then able to be married.). The bag fell into a stocking that had been hung by the fire to dry! This was repeated later with the second daughter. Finally, determined to discover the person who had given him the money, the father secretly hid by the fire every evening until he caught Nicholas dropping in a bag of gold. Nicholas begged the man to not tell anyone what he had done, because he did not want to bring attention to himself. But soon the news got out and when anyone received a secret gift, it was thought that maybe it was from Nicholas.” Interesting, right?
whychristmas

Recently I’ve been reading articles stating that surveys are saying that the majority of people want Santa Claus to be gender neutral. The headlines always make it seem like it’s the vast majority of people who would prefer Santa to be a woman or gender neutral. However, in most of those articles if you read to the veeeery bottom it states that out of those surveyed 70% would prefer Santa remains a man. Here’s the thing, the legend of St. Nick, Santa Claus, Sinter Klaus and Father Christmas are all based on a person who lived centuries ago. That Saint just so happened to be a male and so I vote that Santa remains a male. To each their own but that’s my vote! hope everyone has a very Happy Holiday season!