Santa's Surprising Origins by Rev. Austin Miles
He is loveable,
congenial, giving and jolly. What's more he knows everything, as any child will
readily testify. He is a colorful old man, whose visits are eagerly awaited by
millions of children each year and
who, for a little while, makes the world a
much happier place.
Is Santa Claus a good influence on children, or a bad
influence whose image merely commercializes Christmas and who takes the reason
out of the season, as some charge?
Where did Santa come from? It will
surprise many to learn that Santa Claus (as we know him today) came out of the
church itself through the charity of a very devout and caring priest.
Now bear in mind that this is a true, historically documented account.
Approximately 200 years after the birth of Christ, a meeting of the elders of a
little Catholic church in Myra, Turkey had just been called
to order. They
needed to appoint a bishop but no fitting candidate could be found. So great was
the need that they decided to pray.
Out at sea, a ship battled a raging
storm. The crew valiantly fought to keep it afloat. Trunks were being thrown
overboard to lighten the load as frightened passengers held onto whatever they
could to keep from
being swept overboard while others huddled in their
cabins. The ravaging waves tore some wood from the sides of the
ship.
"Nicholas...NICHOLAS!" someone yelled frantically. It had been noised
about that a man named Nicholas, who was known to be a man of God, was on
board.
Out of a cabin, in response to the call, came a man with a long white
beard. Holding on to the rail of the tossing ship, he began to pray for the
storm to cease. As he prayed he lifted his hands heavenward.
Miraculously,
the storm calmed. The crippled ship drifted into the harbor of Myra.
The
elders of the little Catholic church in Myra suddenly stopped in the midst of
their intense prayer, opened their eyes and looked around at each other,
startled at a message from God that had come to each of them in the form of a
vision; they were to appoint as their bishop, the first man named Nicholas who
would, within the hour, enter the church to pray.
As the leaning ship hobbled
into the port and was docked, Nicholas disembarked and made his way into the
village to seek a church. He wanted to give thanks to God for His intervention
during the storm that
could have killed everyone on board.
Finding the
church, he eagerly approached it. The heads of the elders turned toward the door
as it slowly opened. The stately man with the snow-white beard entered, and,
focused on the altar, made his way down to the front and knelt in a prayer of
thanksgiving. As he rose to leave the elders approached him. "What is your
name?" asked one. "Nicholas." was the reply.
He Lived to Serve God "God has
sent you to us to be our new bishop,"
said another. The group joyfully fitted
the surprised Nicholas with a long red priestly robe and miter.
Nicholas
quickly became known as, "The Bishop of Miracles," because of so many
spectacular answers to his prayers.
Unlike most priests, Bishop Nicholas was
wealthy through family inheritance. In his mind, wealth came from God and
belonged to God. The very reason for his existence was to serve God. And that is
how he lived his life.
Nicholas became increasingly concerned about a custom
in Turkey. If little girls did not have a dowry so that they could marry, they
would be sold into slavery, which included prostitution. Bishop Nicholas
had
given away most of his own fortune so he went about and managed to
collect gold from admirers.
On December 6th, under cover of darkness, he
wrapped the gold coins in several little bags and visited each home that had a
daughter without a dowry, dropping a bag of gold through the windows of each,
which landed on the hearth where the little girl's clothes would be
drying.
When the gold was discovered the next morning, the family
rejoiced.
Their little daughters were saved from slavery.
Nicholas
continued what was to become an annual tradition. Nobody knew the identity of
the mysterious benefactor who would slip around the village on that date each
year.
On one such night, as Nicholas put his arm through the window to drop
the bag of gold, instead of it landing on the hearth, the bag fell into a
stocking that was hanging in front of the fireplace to dry.
It was found the
next morning, to the delight of the family. Which, by the way, is how the custom
of hanging up Christmas stockings came to be.
Shortly before Nicholas's
death, which occurred on December 6th, the date of his annual visit, it was
learned that he was the individual who brought so much joy to so many
families.
Now a Saint Five hundred years later, in the 9th Century, Nicholas
was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church, hence the name, Saint
Nicholas.
And since the celebration of Christmas came after the life of
St.Nicholas, he actually preceded Christmas, as we know it today.
As the
story of St. Nicholas spread, French nuns in the 12th Century began making
annual night-time visits to poor families with children, leaving fruit and nuts,
which these families could not afford.
The nuns made their gift-giving rounds
on what became known as, "St. Nicholas Eve," December 5th. The tradition spread
throughout the Old World and across the ocean to the New. Many people to this
day celebrate Christmas on December 6th.
St. Nicholas became the Patron Saint
of many countries including Russia, becoming a major ingredient in the Russian
Christmas celebration.
England made St. Nicholas, "Father Christmas." Germany
picked up on that title and in France, he became known as "Papa Noel."
As the
various forms of Nicholas began to emerge in the secular world over the years,
some unanticipated problems arose: protests which came out of...the
church.
Martin Luther pounded his pulpit proclaiming that the true Christmas
message was being lost by the St. Nicholas connection.
The Dutch came to the
rescue and adopted what they believed to be a more religious view of Nicholas
that would satisfy the critics. The Dutch-German Protestant Reform Movement
brought with it the idea that the Christ child should be the standard bearer for
Christmas. The German word for Christ child, "Christkindl," evolved to, "Kris
Kringle," yet another version and another irritant for Luther.
In 1822, on
the night before Christmas, which the world began to celebrate on December 24th,
Clement Moore wrote a poem about the gift-giver for his six children. That poem,
"The Night Before Christmas," was published the following year in the Sentinel
of Troy, New York.
Up to that time, Nicholas had taken various forms. He was
portrayed with a black beard, then a white beard. He was shown dressed in
everything including buckskin.
Then ... Santa Mr. Moore defined Nicholas once
and for all and renamed him, Santa Claus. He had, no doubt, been influenced by
the Dutch who named him, "Sinter (Saint) Klass (short for Nicholas) and that had
become, "Sinterklass."
Others who spoke broken English, knowing that gold had
been found on the hearth by the fireplace, started a new legend. The gift-giver
came down the chimney and would land in the cinders of burning embers, so they
called him, "Cinder Klaussen," which would in Moore's hands become,
Santa
Claus.
Clement Moore's poem made Santa famous. He even named the reindeer.
Not only did he name them, he made them fly. He might have taken that idea from
the poet, Washington Irving, who wrote a book in 1809 about a Dutch Colonist's
dream in which St. Nick came riding over the tops of trees in a wagon wherein he
brings yearly presents to the children.
An artist named Thomas Nash, who was
a Harper's Weekly cartoonist, began to show what Santa looked like. He dressed
him in red, which had been the official color of the priestly robes worn by St.
Nicholas and went further by making Santa plump and jolly.
To show how much
of a church connection to Santa there is, Clement Moore's father was the
Episcopal Bishop of New York, and, Clement Moore himself was Professor of
Theology at Union Theological Seminary.
In 1897, a little girl named,
Virginia Hanlon, had been told that there really was no Santa Claus. She was so
disturbed about it that she wrote a letter to the editor of The New York Sun,
whose name, by the way, was Francis P. Church...can't get away from that
connection. He responded with a story titled, "Yes Virginia, there really is a
Santa Claus." And the world breathed a sigh of relief.
It is interesting to
note that the clearest image of Santa came not from the church, or from a poet,
but by, of all things, a soft drink company advertisement! That drawing, known
as 'the Coca Cola Santa,' created and drawn by Haddon Sundblom, made him totally
definable. And the elves? Well, they were first seen in Ireland as
Leprechauns.
A Return to Love
St. Nicholas has been replaced by the
created, Santa, who does indeed delight millions of children. But maybe through
the hustle and bustle we have lost the very core of what Christmas is and should
be; a time of love and sharing with people in need (whether we know them or
not), rather than an orgy of gift giving, receiving, and thinking of one's
personal wants.
I would like to see the original idea of giving and charity,
as set forth by the real St. Nick, with nothing expected in return, brought
back.
As for the commercialization of Christmas, there still is a bright
side.
It is the one time in the year where we can hear songs proclaiming the
King of Kings and Lord of Lords, with others heralding the birth of The Holy
Child, Jesus Christ our Savior coming through the loud speakers of the malls and
shopping centers of the secular world. Homes are decorated with lights to
proclaim Him. And people are a little nicer to one another at least once a
year.
So maybe this commercialized version is better than having no
celebration at all.
Rev. Austin Miles is a Northern California chaplain,
author, award-winning writer and historian. He was a writer-researcher and
technical consultant for the multi award-winning TV series, "Ancient Secrets of
The Bible," for CBS TV, which is currently being re-run on the Total Living
Network (TLN). He portrayed Alexander Graham Bell in the Houghton Mifflin
interactive CD-Rom titled, InventorLabs, which won
two Gold Awards for "Best
Educational Software for Adolescents." Rev. Miles is listed in the International
Historic Who's Who Encyclopedia.
