What People Misunderstand This Week: the True Story of Santa Claus
Christmas is here, so I decided to explore the myths associated with this holiday. Last week, I focused on myths about Jesus . This week, I’ll explore another beloved Christmas symbol: Santa Claus, the central figure in the secular pantheon of Christmas mascots, so enigmatic that we can’t even agree on his real name.
I’m sure he’s innocent of any crimes, but Santa has many aliases. Among many other nicknames and honorary titles, the one who brings gifts in December is known as Jolly Old St. Nicholas, Kris Kringle, Père Noël, and Father Christmas. That’s a whole bunch of fictional identities, but what’s his real name? And who came up with it?
Did Coca-Cola Invent Santa Claus?
A common myth is that the modern image of Santa Claus—red-robed, white-bearded, and overweight—was created by the Coca-Cola Company in the 1930s to sell soda . But this isn’t true. While it’s true that Coca-Cola flooded popular publications with advertisements featuring illustrations by Haddon Sundblom depicting a plump boy in a red robe drinking Coke, Sundblom drew on existing images of Santa Claus, particularly the 1822 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” commonly referred to as “The Night Before Christmas.”
Did Clement Clarke Moore invent Santa Claus?
The poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” was written by Clement Clarke Moore, and it does contain some details about Santa that have become almost universally accepted. The plump figure, the sparkling eyes, the cheerfulness, and the rosy cheeks—all of these are pure Moore. Also, the sleigh and the reindeer, the reindeer’s names, and Santa coming down the chimney were all Moore’s invention. However, Moore didn’t invent Santa because he considered St. Nicholas to be a small man .
Santa Claus is not just any baby.
Although the poem “The Night Before Christmas” doesn’t specify Saint Nicholas’s height, Moore describes him as an “elf” and a “little old charioteer” who drives a “miniature sleigh” pulled by “eight tiny reindeer.” He is said to fit down a chimney with ease, despite his belly being like a bowl of jelly. Most of the clues in Moore’s poem indicate that Saint Nicholas is about two feet tall.
Moore’s poem isn’t even about Santa Claus. It’s about Saint Nicholas, and much of Moore’s inspiration came from centuries-old traditions, which in turn drew on folk myths drawn from Catholic saints’ lives. But if you trace Santa Claus mythology back to the year 300, during the Roman Empire, you’ll find a historically confirmed person who actually lived on Earth. So Santa Claus does exist—in a sense.
Jolly Old Saint Nicholas: A Real Christmas Tough Guy
Above is a depiction of Saint Nicholas, painted between 1503 and 1508. You might be wondering why Saint Nicholas is depicted gesturing toward three miniature naked men standing in a wooden barrel—what kind of Christmas parties were they back then? Believe me, I’ll get to that, but first, the facts.
Saint Nicholas of Myra, also known as Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, was a Catholic bishop who lived in Turkey during the Roman Empire and (likely) attended the First Council of Nicaea in 325. He died on December 6, around 343. That’s all we know for sure about Saint Nicholas—the earliest accounts of his life and deeds are hagiographies written centuries after his death, so, according to leading Saint Nicholas historian Jonah Lendering and common sense, they can’t be trusted. Nevertheless, a cult formed around Saint Nicholas, people built churches to him, and we still speak of him as a kind man bringing gifts to children, so he must have done something good. Here are just a few of the good deeds and miracles attributed to Saint Nicholas:
-
As an infant, he refused to suckle his mother’s breast on Fridays.
-
He saved three girls from prostitution by giving their father gold as a dowry.
-
Calmed the storm at sea.
-
Saved three soldiers from unjust execution.
-
Remained chaste
-
Cut down a tree possessed by a demon.
-
He rebuked the heretic Arius at the Council of Nicaea for suggesting that God created Jesus.
These are all good deeds, but one story about Saint Nicholas stands out above all others: Saint Nicholas is said to have resurrected three children who had been murdered, dismembered, and pickled in brine by an evil butcher who planned to sell them as pork during a famine.
As expected, the story of Saint Nicholas confronting the evil butcher and bringing back pickled children from the grave caught on much more strongly than the story of him striking a heretic. In some versions, he enslaved the evil butcher and, during his annual rounds, brought him to beat naughty children with a stick.
All this brings us back to homunculi:
The story of the resurrected children captivated people so much that artists began depicting Saint Nicholas with three small, muscular boys in a vat (they look like old men only because early medieval artists were bad at drawing children). “Saint Nicholas with naked children” was so common that even people who hadn’t heard the story of the butcher associated the saint with children, and he became known as the Saint who loved children (but not in a disgusting sense). The legend and cult of Saint Nicholas spread far and wide, and when they reached the Netherlands, he was called “Sinterklaas,” which eventually evolved into Santa Claus.
Religious rivalry between Santa Claus and Saint Nicholas
Santa Claus and Saint Nicholas were once sworn enemies born of religious dogma, but the magic of Christmas and American religious tolerance have united them into a single holiday image.
By the 17th century, the tradition of the jolly Saint Nicholas bringing gifts to children on December 6th had spread throughout Europe. But Protestant reformer Martin Luther didn’t want a Catholic saint giving gifts to Protestant children. So Luther replaced Saint Nicholas with Jesus himself, creating and popularizing the tradition of little J. giving gifts to children on December 25th, the anniversary of his birth, rather than Saint Nicholas giving gifts on December 6th, the anniversary of his death.
The gift-giver was called Christkindl , the Christ Child, and was often depicted with wings. He was said to sneakily hide while delivering gifts, and Christkindl was to the grown-up Jesus what the Muppet Babies were to the Muppets—not quite a canonical character, but fun for children. He was also an enemy of Saint Nicholas, sent to erase the kindly old man from Protestant memory, an operation that was partially successful. Christkindl is still the traditional seasonal gift-giver in some parts of the world. But ultimately, the joke was on Martin Luther.
Christmas arrived in the United States with German immigrants in the 1800s. The Germans encountered Dutch settlers who were already living there and were devoted to Saint Nicholas. Presumably, since both Saint Nicholas and Christmas were myths told to children, there was no bitter, bloody religious war. Not a single heretic was killed. Instead, they compromised: America gradually settled on December 25th as the day of gift delivery, instead of December 6th, but the gifts were delivered by Santa Claus instead of Christmas , whose name eventually morphed into “Kris Kringle,” another name for Santa/Saint Nicholas.