The True Origin of Santa Claus

It’s hard to believe our modern-day Christmas traditions are really fairly young, relative to the modern settlement of our country, when you walk through the aisles of your local discount store and see the breadth of all the decorations and gift ideas.

The Puritans who helped found this country didn’t think excessive celebration was appropriate. However, by the mid 1800’s the newer immigrant settlers had brought many of their favorite holiday rituals and traditions with them and the celebration of Christmas took hold.

One of these traditions was celebrating Saint Nicholas’ birthday, December 6^th. This is the day when he  would ride his white horse down from Heaven and fill good children’s shoes with gifts “to prepare their hearts for the coming of the Christ Child,” according to “Victorian Family Celebrations” by Sarah Ban Breathnach (Simon & Schuster, 1990, ISBN 978-0671784089, out of print). Breathnach is also the author of the Simple Abundance series.

Over the years, his visit got pushed back to Christmas Eve and his name changed to Santa Claus but the original celebration was for St. Nicholas’ birthday. The legend of him giving bags of gold to a poor man who had no dowry for his three young daughters was the spark that brought on the legend of giving of gifts to children.

Supposedly, he learned of the plight of this father and sneaked by their house on three different nights, throwing a bag of gold in their window to help pay the dowry for each daughter so she could wed . On the third occasion, the father waited outside his house and discovered who it was, showering St. Nicholas with gratitude.

As a young man living somewhere around the fourth century, the real man who would become St. Nicholas was orphaned and left wealthy from his inheritance. He was raised in the church and knew he must help distribute his fortune to charity.

He eventually became the Bishop of Myra, supposedly attended the first Ecumenical Council in Nicaea and was several times imprisoned because of his Christian beliefs. He has become one of the most popular saints for Catholics, and according to www.catholic.org his image is the second most popular in saintly artwork only to the Virgin Mary. He is especially popular in Russia.

According to this same website, he is the patron of bakers and pawnbrokers (kind of funny since we bake cookies and spend a lot of money at Christmas now) but also protector of sailors (“May St. Nicholas hold the tiller”) and children (of course).

The celebration of his birthday was brought to America by the Dutch Protestants of New Amsterdam who converted the saint into a Nordic magician.

According to Breathnach’s book, children fill their shoes with hay or a carrot for St. Nicholas’ horse, and place the shoes either beside the door or by the fireplace. In addition, a beverage, traditionally a glass of schnapps, is also left for St. Nicholas’ helper Ruprecht. Ruprecht is in charge of carrying “the satchel of sweets and novelties for good children and switches for the bad,” she writes. (After all the schnapps, how could he remember who is good and who is bad?)

“Parents who feel frustrated by the fact that Santa Claus’s visit inevitably overshadows their religious observance of the birth of Christ, a visit from St. Nicholas can help tremendously,” writes Breathnach.

The celebration of St. Nicholas’ goodness and generosity helps us teach our children that this season is truly about giving, not just receiving. St. Nicholas’ birthday, today, is a good day to do that.