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Santa Claus
In the same 4th century that the Western Church selected December 25 as the feast day for the nativity (and the Eastern Church selected January 6 or 7), a pious bishop named Nicholas of Myra (in present-day Turkey) gained the reputation of being particularly generous to children. Over time, as hagiography mixed with history, St. Nicholas (Sinterklaas in Dutch) became recognized as the patron saint of children, and his feast day was commemorated on December 6.1 Unbeknownst to the original St. Nicholas or those who contemporaneously selected December 25 as the feast day for the Nativity, the two celebrations and the two holy figures would be merged into a massive consumer extravaganza by the late 20th century.
American popular culture played a decisive role in transforming the pious 4th century Saint Nicholas into the advertising phenomenon of Santa Claus. One of the early steps in this transformation was the famous children's poem, "Twas the Night Before Christmas," which was published anonymously in 1823 as A Visit from St. Nicholas.2 Although the poem, like Dickens' famous story, makes explicit references to "Christmas," it is otherwise fully pagan and is completely divorced from orthodox Christian tradition and theology.3 The relationship between the protagonist and the fourth century saint is purely nominal. St. Nick has been transformed from a kindly bishop to a magical "right jolly old elf" who is transported by a "miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer." (Modern readers of the original poem have been so influenced by subsequent depictions of a robust and larger-than-life Santa Claus that they generally fail to note that the original in the poem was a tiny elfin figure who was able to travel easily through the chimney because his size was so small.) His reindeer bear the thoroughly pagan names of "Comet," "Cupid," and, in translation, "Thunder," and "Lightning." Although, like his successors, the 1823 St. Nick is rotund (albeit an elf), comes down through the chimney, and fills stockings with gifts, he is not yet dressed in red (but in fur); nor does he live at the North Pole. The birth of Jesus is not mentioned in the poem. Though not yet named "Santa Claus," this magical, well-nourished St. Nick would soon be promoted by merchants in lieu of Jesus Christ, whose birthday they were ostensibly honoring. The phrase "Merry Christmas" has no biblical roots, but was shouted aloud by the fictional gift-giving elf named "St. Nick" in the children's poem, and by Ebenezer Scrooge after being transformed by his encounter with spirits from beyond. The greeting, "Merry Christmas," then, comes not from the Bible, but from popular culture.
The popular, contemporary image of Santa Claus, which began with the miniature St. Nick of "Twas the Night Before Christmas," expanded into the full-sized modern character with the help of Coca-Cola advertisements illustrated by Haddon Sundblom after 1931. Unlike the gaunt St. Nicholas of the fourth century, Sundblom's Santa Claus "lost his religious authority and became a kindly, even jolly, grandfather figure who delivered presents . . . ."4 It was the gift-giving Santa Claus rather than the pious Saint Nicholas that captured the merchants' idea of the true meaning of Christmas. A new and vastly more commercialized era of Christmas began "when businesses recognized the marketing possibilities associated with holidays."5
Over time, St. Nicholas was separated from his original feast day (December 6), christened with a mispronunciation of his Dutch name (Sinterklass), secularized and stripped of his clerical garb, fattened up, equipped with a magical sleigh pulled by flying Scandinavian reindeer, taught how to descend through chimneys with a magical touch to his nose, given a house decorated with pagan evergreens, married to a jolly Mrs. Claus, provided with a non-union workshop at the North Pole operated by elves, and turned into a theologically incorrect but commercially triumphant competitor to Jesus Christ on the very day that had originally been set aside to celebrate the latter's birth.6
See the History Channel's video on the origins of Santa Claus.
Learn More
>> Christmas' Origins
>> Christmas Law
>> Santa Claus
>> Christmas Evergreens
>> A Weighin' the Mangers
>> The Origin of Crèches
>> Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"
>> Puritans & Christmas
>> Celebrating Christmas in America
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1 Bruce David Forbes, “Christmas Was Not Always Like This: A Brief History,” Word and World vol. 27 (2007), 404. In modern-day Netherlands and Belgium, the popular Sinterklaas -- who is dressed in clerical red robes and who wears a bishop's miter -- rides on a white horse on the eve of his feast day and delivers presents to good children.
2 There is a controversy about authorship, though Clement Clarke Moore is generally credited. See Forbes, Christmas: A Candid History, 84.
3 The same could be said for the most popular ballet associated with Christmas, The Nutcracker (1892), which is set on a Christmas eve and is replete with dancing fairies, dolls that come to life, and animals that are able to communicate with humans.
4Bruce David Forbes, Christmas : A Candid History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 93.
5 Forbes, "Christmas Was Not Always Like This," 405. For a critique of the commercial aspects of Christmas, see Christmas Unwrapped: Consumerism, Christ, and Culture, edited by Richard Horsley and James Tracy, (Harrisburg: Trinity Pres International, 2001) and Waits, The Modern Christmas in America. The popular holiday film "The Miracle on 34th Street" appeared in 1947, which included a scene where the U.S. Postal Service officially recognized Kris Kringle as the "one and only true Santa Claus" who, conveniently enough, was an employee of Macy's Department Store.
6 Before the Surgeon General warned of the health risks of tobacco, the grandfatherly Santa Claus smoked a pipe.
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