Santa Claus HISTORY

The man we know as Santa Claus has a history all his own. Today, he is thought of mainly as the jolly man in red, but his story stretches all the way back to the third century. Find out more about the history of Santa Claus from his earliest origins to the shopping mall favorite of today.

The Legend of St. Nicholas

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. One of the best known of the St. Nicholas stories is that he saved three poor sisters from being sold into slavery or prostitution by their father by providing them with a dowry so that they could be married. Over the course of many years, Nicholas’s popularity spread and he became known as the protector of children and sailors. His feast day is celebrated on the anniversary of his death, December 6. This was traditionally considered a lucky day to make large purchases or to get married. By the Renaissance, St. Nicholas was the most popular saint in Europe. Even after the Protestant Reformation, when the veneration of saints began to be discouraged, St. Nicholas maintained a positive reputation, especially in Holland.

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 Santas

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. In 1841, thousands of children visited a Philadelphia shop to see a life-size Santa Claus model. 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.

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas

In 1822, Clement Clarke Moore, an Episcopal minister, wrote a long Christmas poem for his three daughters entitled “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas.” Moore’s poem, which he was initially hesitant to publish due to the frivolous nature of its subject, is largely responsible for our modern image of Santa Claus as a “right jolly old elf” with a portly figure and the supernatural ability to ascend a chimney with a mere nod of his head! Although some of Moore’s imagery was probably borrowed from other sources, his poem helped popularize the now-familiar image of a Santa Claus who flew from house to house on Christmas Eve–in “a miniature sleigh” led by eight flying reindeer–leaving presents for deserving children. “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” created a new and immediately popular American icon. In 1881, political cartoonist Thomas Nast drew on Moore’s poem to create the first likeness that matches our modern image of Santa Claus. His cartoon, which appeared in Harper’s Weekly, depicted Santa as a rotund, cheerful man with a full, white beard, holding a sack laden with toys for lucky children. It is Nast who gave Santa his bright red suit trimmed with white fur, North Pole workshop, elves, and his wife, Mrs. Claus.

A Santa by Any Other Name

18th-century America’s Santa Claus was not the only St. Nicholas-inspired gift-giver to make an appearance at Christmastime. Similar figures were popular all over the world. Christkind or Kris Kringle was believed to deliver presents to well-behaved Swiss and German children. Meaning “Christ child,” Christkind is an angel-like figure often accompanied by St. Nicholas on his holiday missions. In Scandinavia, a jolly elf named Jultomten was thought to deliver gifts in a sleigh drawn by goats. English legend explains that Father Christmas visits each home on Christmas Eve to fill children’s stockings with holiday treats. Pere Noel is responsible for filling the shoes of French children. In Russia, it is believed that an elderly woman named Babouschka purposely gave the wise men wrong directions to Bethlehem so that they couldn’t find Jesus. Later, she felt remorseful, but could not find the men to undo the damage. To this day, on January 5, Babouschka visits Russian children leaving gifts at their bedsides in the hope that one of them is the baby Jesus and she will be forgiven. In Italy, a similar story exists about a woman called La Befana, a kindly witch who rides a broomstick down the chimneys of Italian homes to deliver toys into the stockings of lucky children.

The Ninth Reindeer

Rudolph, “the most famous reindeer of all,” was born over a hundred years after his eight flying counterparts. The red-nosed wonder was the creation of Robert L. May, a copywriter at the Montgomery Ward department store.

In 1939, May wrote a Christmas-themed story-poem to help bring holiday traffic into his store. Using a similar rhyme pattern to Moore’s “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas,” May told the story of Rudolph, a young reindeer who was teased by the other deer because of his large, glowing, red nose. But, When Christmas Eve turned foggy and Santa worried that he wouldn’t be able to deliver gifts that night, the former outcast saved Christmas by leading the sleigh by the light of his red nose. Rudolph’s message—that given the opportunity, a liability can be turned into an asset—proved popular. Montgomery Ward sold almost two and a half million copies of the story in 1939. When it was reissued in 1946, the book sold over three and half million copies. Several years later, one of May’s friends, Johnny Marks, wrote a short song based on Rudolph’s story (1949). It was recorded by Gene Autry and sold over two million copies. Since then, the story has been translated into 25 languages and been made into a television movie, narrated by Burl Ives, which has charmed audiences every year since 1964.

(Muslims celebrate the Christian meaning of Christmas)
Mohammed Khaku lives in Upper Macungie Township.

The Christmas holiday is coming upon us, with colorful lights, joyful carols and people going to churches to celebrate the birth of Jesus (Prophet Isa). It is well known, particularly in this holiday season, that Christians follow the teaching of Jesus. What is less well understood is that Muslims also love and revere Jesus as one of God’s greatest messengers to mankind.

The personality of Jesus plays a central role in Islam. Muslims believe that God delivered the Gospel — Injeel to Jesus, just as he did Ta’wrat with Moses and the Old Testament (Zabur) to David and the Koran to Prophet Muhammad. It is critical for Muslims and non-Muslims to understand that a person is not considered a Muslim unless he or she believes in Jesus, and Islam is the only religion that testifies to Christianity.

Islam also assigns a very high degree of respect to the mother of Jesus, Mary (Mariam). There is an exclusive chapter in the Koran on the mother of Jesus by the name of ”Sura-e-mariam.” The life of Jesus Christ is a momentous event for Christians and non-Christians alike. Jesus Christ’s birthday is a signpost, and of all the great people born through the ages, imagine that Jesus is so important that his life divides time between B.C. and A.D.

Both Muslims and Christians can learn a lot from Christmas. This annual celebration is the victory of paganism over the religion of Jesus and no one disputes that many of its symbols came from the pagan religions rather than the birth or teaching of Jesus Christ. The incorporation of these pagan rituals with Christianity has taken a toll by corrupting the original Christian principles of spirituality, simplicity, humbleness, kindness and generosity.

Christmas is an awesome time of year, but the irony is that Prophet Jesus and his teaching are becoming more and more absent from the celebrations. However, there is a positive side of Christmas becoming increasingly secular. I think it’s awesome that Christmas brings some of the greatest truths of the gospel to light. If it were not for the Christmas or Thanksgiving holidays, family relationships would be worse than they are. In fact, these are the only times that many families make an attempt to mend broken relationships.

In the fight to separate religion from schools and government, I think the Christmas celebration is a great victory to bring back spirituality to one’s life. I take pleasure in seeing the Gospel of Jesus displayed in public places. It is a shame to see that ”Merry Christmas” has given way to ”Happy Holidays” or ”Seasons Greetings.” The blame lies with commercialism, rather than with militant Islam or Judaism. Denying the Christianity in Christmas celebrations helps no one. Actually, we Muslims welcome having more of a Christian content, because at present it is more of a shopping festival. Muslims do celebrate Christmas in our own way, by celebrating our love to this blessed baby and Messiah.

As the forces of hate in this country try to pull Muslims and Christians apart, we are in desperate need of a unifying force. That force could be the message of love, peace and forgiveness taught by Jesus and accepted by followers of both faiths. I think of a quotation: ”Jesus, Son of Mary, said: ‘The World is a bridge, pass over it, but build no houses upon it. He, who hopes for a day, may hope for eternity: but the World endures but an hour. Spend it in prayers, for the rest is unseen.’ ”

This Persian calligraphy is arched and enscripted at the entrance of the greatest piece of Muslim architecture, the mosque built by Emperor Akbar, at Fatepur Sikri, a few miles to the west of Agra, in northern India. Why is this Christian quotation given a center stage in a Muslim monument, and why would a Muslim emperor want to place such a phrase over the entrance to the main Mosques in his capital city?

This saying was circulated around the Muslim world, from Spain to China. The Koran calls Christians the ”nearest in Love” and instructs Muslims to ”dispute not with the people of the book that is, the Jews and Christians.” The relationships between Islam and Christainity are complex and intricately woven. There were never any conversions by swords, a myth much propagated in anti-Islamic literature. The American Muslim community stands ready to honor the legacy of building bridges of interfaith understanding and challenging those who would divide our nation along religious or ethnic lines.

As Christmas approaches, I have to ask, why is Jesus Christ’s birth celebrated around the world, particularly in America, and yet his message of peace on earth and communal love is so silently ignored?. Will the persecutions, greed, exploitation, oppression and injustice carry us into another year with a most un-Christ like persistence?