Posts Tagged ‘History Of Santa Claus’
November 2nd, 2009
The History of Santa Claus Revealed
asked:
The History of Santa Claus Revealed
Norman A. Rubin
(At Christmas time we imagine a jovial figure dressed in red driving a sleigh filled with toys and gifts pulled by a herd of reindeer streaking over rooftops. Or could that he is a really figure from the past and not as we envisage him to be.)
Since the earliest history of man almost every European culture has marked the winter solstice with a major festival for the rebirth of the earth. As the moment in time when, provided the appropriate rituals are performed and celebrated the earth will be reborn anew from the quietus of winter, its significance is manifest. Many are aware that this which lies behind our Christmas and New Years celebrations.
The lack of significance is indicated by the fact that no attempt was made to Christianize the festival until the middle of the fourth century. In the seventh century when the Puritans of England actually banned it with
other festivals of this kind there was no outcry.
The truth is our present festivities of the holidays are almost entirely a nineteenth century innovation in which three elements came together. One, the English writer, Charles Dickens with his Christmas stories, most famously ‘A Christmas Carol’, was the native element. The second was Germanic, in the form of the Prince Consort of the throne of England who, in 1840, set up a Christmas tree for his children at Windsor Palace. The other element was American, though it was to combine with a relic from pagan Britain.
The American contribution to the element of Santa Claus came by a circuitous route, which in the early of colonization of America was called Saint Nicholas. The Dutch who colonized what was called New Amsterdam, now New York, had imported a custom from their home country of Holland. The sixth of December is the feast of their Patron saint. Nicholas of Myra. The day was traditionally marked by a figure in red and white Episcopal vestments visiting every household in which there were children. If the youngsters had been good throughout the year, they were rewarded with small presents. If not they were liable to a mild form of punishment at the hands of Klaubauf the assistant who accompanied St. Nicholas.
In 1822, Clement Moore, professor of Greek and Hebrew at New York State University, charmed by the custom, wrote a fifty-six-line poem ‘The Visit of St. Nicholas’, with its now famous line:
“T’was the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…”
The poem was intended solely for his children, his audience, when he first read it, numbered a lady who arranged for its anonymous publication in a local paper. The story was later taken up by Thomas Nast, a magazine illustrator of Bavarian descent. He was the person who turned St. Nicholas, his name now abbreviated to Santa Claus or Klaus (from the Dutch Sankt Nikolaus) into the cheerful, rubicund, bearded figure that became the personification of Christmas.
Soon popular throughout the United States, Santa Claus began to lose any connection with his Dutch and religious past. His secularization went still further when he crossed the Atlantic Ocean to the British Isles in the mid-nineteenth century. Here the figure quickly merged with an ancient personage, Father Christmas or Old Christmas, who had figured in the Mummer’s plays probably since the pre-Christian era.
Over the ensuing years the process continued with Father Christmas/Santa Claus acquiring characteristics, which increasingly separated him from his original ancestry. Save in the country of Holland, where the tradition of St. Nicholas is still celebrated. Within time the Saint is no longer generally associated with the sixth of December, but to the Christmas holiday on December twenty-fifth; and his abode has moved to the frozen north, whence he travels on a flying sledge drawn by a team of flying reindeer. Today Santa Claus remains the bearer of gifts, but most idiosyncratically he enters homes by the way of the chimney and leaving, ‘traveling upward with fire and smoke..”.
“And a Merry Xmas to all…”
NOTE:
1) The reindeer remains important to the economy of the Laplanders of Northern Europe, but another source of income augment it. It is tourism as it is the place much visited that is supposed to be the place where Santa Claus lives; and at Xmas time the post office there is inundated with letters by children to that jolly figure.
2) In the days when open fireplaces were usual, children would write their requests to Father Christmas on pieces of paper then thrown on the fire when they burned to ash and allowed to drift up the chimney and float on the winds, that it was hoped their petitions would reach him before Xmas.
Savannah
The History of Santa Claus Revealed
Norman A. Rubin
(At Christmas time we imagine a jovial figure dressed in red driving a sleigh filled with toys and gifts pulled by a herd of reindeer streaking over rooftops. Or could that he is a really figure from the past and not as we envisage him to be.)
Since the earliest history of man almost every European culture has marked the winter solstice with a major festival for the rebirth of the earth. As the moment in time when, provided the appropriate rituals are performed and celebrated the earth will be reborn anew from the quietus of winter, its significance is manifest. Many are aware that this which lies behind our Christmas and New Years celebrations.
The lack of significance is indicated by the fact that no attempt was made to Christianize the festival until the middle of the fourth century. In the seventh century when the Puritans of England actually banned it with
other festivals of this kind there was no outcry.
The truth is our present festivities of the holidays are almost entirely a nineteenth century innovation in which three elements came together. One, the English writer, Charles Dickens with his Christmas stories, most famously ‘A Christmas Carol’, was the native element. The second was Germanic, in the form of the Prince Consort of the throne of England who, in 1840, set up a Christmas tree for his children at Windsor Palace. The other element was American, though it was to combine with a relic from pagan Britain.
The American contribution to the element of Santa Claus came by a circuitous route, which in the early of colonization of America was called Saint Nicholas. The Dutch who colonized what was called New Amsterdam, now New York, had imported a custom from their home country of Holland. The sixth of December is the feast of their Patron saint. Nicholas of Myra. The day was traditionally marked by a figure in red and white Episcopal vestments visiting every household in which there were children. If the youngsters had been good throughout the year, they were rewarded with small presents. If not they were liable to a mild form of punishment at the hands of Klaubauf the assistant who accompanied St. Nicholas.
In 1822, Clement Moore, professor of Greek and Hebrew at New York State University, charmed by the custom, wrote a fifty-six-line poem ‘The Visit of St. Nicholas’, with its now famous line:
“T’was the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…”
The poem was intended solely for his children, his audience, when he first read it, numbered a lady who arranged for its anonymous publication in a local paper. The story was later taken up by Thomas Nast, a magazine illustrator of Bavarian descent. He was the person who turned St. Nicholas, his name now abbreviated to Santa Claus or Klaus (from the Dutch Sankt Nikolaus) into the cheerful, rubicund, bearded figure that became the personification of Christmas.
Soon popular throughout the United States, Santa Claus began to lose any connection with his Dutch and religious past. His secularization went still further when he crossed the Atlantic Ocean to the British Isles in the mid-nineteenth century. Here the figure quickly merged with an ancient personage, Father Christmas or Old Christmas, who had figured in the Mummer’s plays probably since the pre-Christian era.
Over the ensuing years the process continued with Father Christmas/Santa Claus acquiring characteristics, which increasingly separated him from his original ancestry. Save in the country of Holland, where the tradition of St. Nicholas is still celebrated. Within time the Saint is no longer generally associated with the sixth of December, but to the Christmas holiday on December twenty-fifth; and his abode has moved to the frozen north, whence he travels on a flying sledge drawn by a team of flying reindeer. Today Santa Claus remains the bearer of gifts, but most idiosyncratically he enters homes by the way of the chimney and leaving, ‘traveling upward with fire and smoke..”.
“And a Merry Xmas to all…”
NOTE:
1) The reindeer remains important to the economy of the Laplanders of Northern Europe, but another source of income augment it. It is tourism as it is the place much visited that is supposed to be the place where Santa Claus lives; and at Xmas time the post office there is inundated with letters by children to that jolly figure.
2) In the days when open fireplaces were usual, children would write their requests to Father Christmas on pieces of paper then thrown on the fire when they burned to ash and allowed to drift up the chimney and float on the winds, that it was hoped their petitions would reach him before Xmas.
Savannah
The Secret History of Santa Claus
Santa Claus is one old dude. We all know that. Just look at how white his beard and hair are, right? But did you know that the legend of Santa Claus, and St. Nick, go back nearly to the time of Christ, nearly 2,000 years ago? No? Well then, sit back, pour yourself a hot chocolate, grab yourself a plate of cookies, and get ready for the story of Santa Claus.
It is said that around the year 280 A.D., there was a man born by the name of Nicolas. He was born in the Near East in a town called Patara. To find it today, look on a map or a globe for the country of Turkey, near Greece. It was there that the man who would become Santa Claus was born.
Nicolas had a big heart, so big that he became a monk and devoted himself to his god and his religion. But Nicolas also was a big fan of his family and his neighbors, and he also devoted himself to them. Word spread in his homeland and far and wide about how kind and generous Nicolas was. Nicolas was born into wealth, and stories soon spread about how Nicolas gave away all of his family’s money to the poor, the sick, and anyone else he came across who needed it.
He became so famous that Nicolas was known as the protector of all children (and sailors too). Once, he even saved three young girls, sisters, from being sold into slavery by their father. Their father, you see, needed money, and was going to make a fortune by selling his daughters. Instead, Nicolas came to their rescue by offering the father money for the girls, and then setting them free.
No wonder that Nicolas became Saint Nicolas after his death. For hundreds of years, Europeans celebrated him on the date of his death, December 6. Some even say that Saint Nick was the most popular saint in all of Europe during the end of the Middle Ages. December 6 was always considered a lucky day for this very same reason.
How did Saint Nick go from being the protector of children to Jolly Old Saint Nick, the guy we know as Santa Claus, who not only protects children, but brings them great gifts too? Well, that’s one heck of a long story, and it involves a manger, and baby Jesus. We probably all already know that story by heart.
But what you may not know is that the end of December was already a big deal in Europe before Christmas was started. It was during this time of year that many Europeans celebrated that winter was almost over. They would have great feasts, celebrated the harvest of their wine and their beer, and the coming of spring and the sun. So then it made perfect sense that when people also started celebrating the birth of Baby Jesus, that the two traditions would meld.
The notion of feasting and celebrating a holiday of lights, the happiness and giving of Saint Nick, and the hope and love brought by Baby Jesus, all of it merged to form the perfect holiday: Christmas. And who makes sure that it happens every year? None other than Santa Claus.
Triston