Santa Claus: The Man, The Myth, The Legend

Santa Claus: The Man, The Myth, The Legend

By: Jillian Parks

December 2, 2008. As my heart pounded, my eyes gaped up at the man whose beard was made of snow and suit was as red as ripe cranberries. What was I to ask for? I knew at this very moment that I only had seconds left to spare to tell him the present I wanted most. Finally, I blurted out “A bike!” The events to come were much of a blur. My brother and I smiled for a picture, and gave the man the rest of our lists. But I knew that the thing that I whispered to the jolly man was the thing I was for sure going to get.

That Christmas, I knew I had made the right decision. The bike I got was beautiful (well it seemed so at the time). Cotton candy colored streamers fell out of the handle bars. An assortment of purple flowers, each unique in their own patterns dotted the winter white background. That day, I felt like the luckiest girl in the world, and it was all because of Santa.

 Believe it or not, though, the man people know today as Santa Claus, the one said to come down chimneys on Christmas and bring gifts and joy to children, did not always have these characteristics of the jolly man we all know and love today.

The Legend of Santa Claus

The legend of Santa Claus can be traced back hundreds of years to a monk named St. Nicholas. It is believed that Nicholas was born sometime around 280 A.D. in Patara, near Myra in modern-day Turkey. Much admired for his piety and kindness, St. Nicholas became the subject of many legends. It is said that he gave away all of his inherited wealth and traveled the countryside helping the poor and sick. Over the course of many years, Nicholas’s popularity spread and he became known as the protector of children and sailors. By the Renaissance, St. Nicholas was the most popular saint in Europe.

Sinter Klaas Comes to New York
St. Nicholas made his first inroads into American popular culture towards the end of the 18th century. In December 1773, and again in 1774, a New York newspaper reported that groups of Dutch families had gathered to honor the anniversary of his death.

The name Santa Claus evolved from Nick’s Dutch nickname, Sinter Klaas, a shortened form of Sint Nikolaas (Dutch for Saint Nicholas). In 1804, John Pintard, a member of the New York Historical Society, distributed woodcuts of St. Nicholas at the society’s annual meeting. The background of the engraving contains now-familiar Santa images including stockings filled with toys and fruit hung over a fireplace. In 1809,Washington Irving helped to popularize the Sinter Klaas stories when he referred to St. Nicholas as the patron saint of New York in his book, The History of New York. As his prominence grew, Sinter Klaas was described as everything from a “rascal” with a blue three-cornered hat, red waistcoat, and yellow stockings to a man wearing a broad-brimmed hat and a “huge pair of Flemish trunk hose.”

Shopping Mall Santa's

Gift-giving, mainly centered around children, has been an important part of the Christmas celebration since the holiday’s rejuvenation in the early 19th century. Stores began to advertise Christmas shopping in 1820, and by the 1840s, newspapers were creating separate sections for holiday advertisements, which often featured images of the newly-popular Santa Claus.It was only a matter of time before stores began to attract children, and their parents, with the lure of a peek at a “live” Santa Claus. In the early 1890s, the Salvation Army needed money to pay for the free Christmas meals they provided to needy families. They began dressing up unemployed men in Santa Claus suits and sending them into the streets of New York to solicit donations. Those familiar Salvation Army Santas have been ringing bells on the street corners of American cities ever since.