The legend of Santa Claus is very
interesting. The entire world is in on keeping the fantasy alive for
young children. The post office collects letters to Santa without
returning them to sender as they normal would. We lie to our kids
telling them that the Santa at the mall, on the street and at the
holiday party are all the real Santa. And if they figure it out, we
tell them that they are Santa’s helpers. Parents take a bite out of
the cookies their children left for Santa and wrap presents with the
from line filled in with Santa’s name. The news reports Santa
sightings on Christmas Eve. Older children, for the most part, will
keep up the lie letting younger children figure it out on their own.
And even if you were to take a stand against it, parents would be
angry and you’d be shunned. Now, I personally have no problem with
Santa. I was told all about Santa and joined in on the fun until
about age three or so. But I’ve had this conversation with people in
the past and thought it was an interesting way to look at it so I
thought I’d share it before addressing this week’s question: Where
did this global conspiracy… I mean the myth of Santa Claus come
from?
Well, as most things, the start is far
from what we have today. The “real” Santa Claus was actually a
monk in the 4th century. Then known as Nikolaos
of Myra, today known as Saint Nicholas, he gave gifts
to those in need. This included leaving coins in the shoes of people
who left them out (sound familiar…?), paying dowries for women who
would have otherwise been sold into slavery or prostitution and
performed a variety of miracles. These miracles included resurrection
of murder victims and multiplying food supplies. He became known as
the protector of children and retained his positive light even when
saints began to have less value in the church during Protestant
Reformation.
For years, people spoke of Saint
Nicholas and in 1773, his legend was brought to the United States by
the Dutch who celebrated the anniversary of his death. This day was
regarded as a day of luck. Many married or made big purchases on that
day. The Dutch knew him as Sinter
Klaas and that is where the name Santa Claus evolved from.
On December 23, 1823 a poem entitled,
Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas was printed in the Troy Sentinel
(the newspaper of our very own Troy, New York!) and marked the
beginning of the modern day Santa Claus. Who wrote the poem is still
up for debate as it was printed under anonymous but most believe it
was Clement Moore. Now there were a few stories of Santa Claus before
this poem. One example is in 1809 the book A History of New York
mentioned Saint Nicholas going down a chimney. However this poem was
what really started to defined our image of the Santa Claus we know
today.
Now for some other facts…
- Mrs. Claus did not make her appearance
until 1849 in a short story by James Rees entitled, A Christmas
Legend. - Santa Claus himself was once considered
to be elf-like and as you know later he was the delivery man who
employed elves. - Santa was once a man of many colors but
in the late 1800s, red became his signature color. Christmas cards in
1885 designed by Louis Prang and the New York Times in 1927 used red.
But it was artist Haddon Sundblom who worked for Coca-Cola in 1931
that created today’s image of Santa Claus. - As early as 1820, stores put out
advertisements for Christmas shopping. In 1841, a shop in
Philadelphia displayed a life-size Santa model to draw in children
and parents. The display was quite successful; thousands of children
flocked to the store to see it. - In 1890, people started to dress up as
Santa in stores to draw in customers to shop for Christmas. The
Salvation Army around the same time started to use men dressed as
Santa Claus to get donations from the people to feed the poor on
Christmas. - In 1897 was one of the earliest
examples of an adult publicly declaring that Santa Claus was in fact
real. The editor of the New York Sun wrote an editorial in response
to a letter from a little girl named Virginia O’Hanlon who was eight
years old at the time to reassure her of the existence of Santa
Claus.
Now these quick facts are only really
about the evolution of Santa in America and there are many more. I
simply picked those I thought were most important and interesting. To
discuss them all would take pages. So, if you know of any additional
Christmas facts, leave a comment!
Oh and I must apologize for it being so long between posts… with getting things done at work before vacation and the holidays themselves I just haven’t had the time. Come the new year things will be back to normal. Have a Merry Christmas… and to those
who do not celebrate Christmas, Happy Holidays!