Ol Saint Nick - Santa Claus

[bulldog]

Found this out researching Saint Nicholas. He was a Bishop in Turkey in the 4th century who traveled all over and was generous. Not too much written about him until 6th century apparently. Here's some events:

Nicholas would come every Dec. 6 and bring gifts down the chimney to children in Northern Europe as early as the 14th century; he was popular and much loved. This seems to have given him and his cult a kind of resilience when elsewhere the images and statues of saints were being razed, burned or smashed.

Q: How did he evolve into the present-day Santa Claus?

The love of Nicholas kept his cult alive up until the late 18th century in Manhattan, NY where a re-versioning of Santa Claus occurred.

The name "Santa Claus" is an American accented version of the Dutch "Sinterklaas." St. Nicholas and Santa Claus are the same person, but many people don't realize that. They are one in the same, but they look different because they are at different points in his posthumous evolution.

We don't know when the idea was carried from Northern Europe to New Amsterdam, now Manhattan. It's safe to say he came with early settlers as a memory and was then dormant in North America until the late 18th century.

What happened then was that gift giving, which had been until that time a local and seasonal exchange of homemade objects, exploded into something bigger. Mass manufacturing began, retail shops opened, toys became available from Northern Europe, and books, musical instruments and linens all became purchasable.

The effect this had was that gift-giving customs were transformed out of all recognition. This caused the need for a providing spirit of gift giving. St. Nicholas was the gift giver from the old world in the Dutch and English traditions; they didn't have to think back too far to remember him.

People in the late 18th century popularized the idea of Santa Claus, but not too deliberately at that time for commercialization. He began to emerge then and his name gradually changed into Santa Claus.

In the 1820s he began to acquire the recognizable trappings: reindeer, sleigh, bells. They are simply the actual bearings in the world from which he emerged. At that time, sleighs were how you got about Manhattan.

The poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas," also known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," debuted in 1822 and described all his details. He smoked a pipe then, but was well on the way to be the figure we know now.

As all these elements took shape around him, he became more and more associated with commercialism, which is understandable but a corruption of what he originally meant. In the medieval period he was a symbol and icon of charity. I am not sure that is true anymore; he seems to be a strange mixture of charity and rampant commercialism.

Q: What do you suggest faithful Christian parents tell their children about Santa?

What I have tried to do by tracing Santa back to his origin is remind myself there is a real moral point to gift giving. St. Nicholas' point was helping people when they were in a spot.

That is the lesson we can take out of this. Gifts just for the sake of giving to our loved ones who have enough may not reflect what St. Nicholas was all about.

Hope the above helps our understanding and misunderstandings and is interesting. I hear Good Ol Saint Nick has a sleigh loaded with Shilohs and is getting ready to head south in time for Christmas!

[RMulhern]

Well....tell 'em there's a guy that's 65 years old that knows there is a Santa Claus and that he'll try to whip anyone that says there isn't a Claus!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

[opencountry]

I was born the inquisitive type. When I was six-years-old my parents told me that Santa was coming to our house sometime during the night with a sleigh pulled by reindeer. Man, I believed it, sure enough. And I wanted to see these deer he had with him. So I hid behind the window curtains in our little house next to the Christmas tree. I waited and waited. My mom left out cookies and milk for Santa. Well, about 1:00 or so in the morning my parents came out from their bedroom and snuck to the 'off limits' basement, bringing up two bicycles for my big brother and me. Then they went back into their bedroom to get more presents for us. But what really 'sealed' everything for me was when my mom took a bite of the cookie and drank some milk. I thought they were for Santa. In the spring the same thing happened with the Easter eggs and rabbit. I should have been a detective. I wanted to know about everything. As I grew up I tried to make sense out of my parents telling me stories about things that never really happened. When my sisters were born and grew to five or six, they started telling them the same stories about Santa, but I knew different. I never said a word to them about anything. I respected my parents. But when I raised my three kids I told them that these presents were from me and mom, becuase we loved them, and it was Christmas. I never denied them that there was a Santa. How could I? He was in every store in town. But I told them the truth about him so they wouldn't think I was a liar later in life. I never wanted to let 'em down in any way. It's really peculiar that even today, society teaches kids to believe in talking animals and things like this, but doesn't want them to be exposed to things that will edify their lives like believing in God. When I made my mind up to tell the the truth about Santa, it was because I wanted them later to believe me when I told them about an invisible God. And they did.

[RMulhern]

opencountry

"Eye golly thar mate!! Thet makes purty good sense!!"

But I also believe that it's permissable to tell a little "white lie" to promote.......MAGIC!!