santa claus

Re: Santa Claus, Origin
Fr: Excerpted from Apalisok, A. (2007 Dec). “Santa Claus in our midst.” The Filipino Expats, p.2. (highlight mine)

“… Our concept of Santa Claus is from the USA. He is a creation of cartoonist Thomas Nast, whose series of Christmas drawings in a magazine begun in 1860 made Santa Claus what he is today. He based his drawings on the poem ‘The Night Before Christmas,” written by Dr. Clement Moore in 1822.

“In turn, it was the Dutch who brought the concept of Santa Claus to the USA. The Dutch kept alive the commemoration of St. Nicholas, a 4th century bishop of Myra in Asia Minor in what is now Turkey. Miracles were attributed to the bishop whose generosity and compassion were known.

“Part of the Dutch tradition of honoring St. Nicholas was for children to place wooden shoes filled with straw by the hearth on the night of the saint’s supposed arrival. The straw was food for his donkey, his means of transportation. In turn, the saint was believed to place small treats in the wooden shoes.

“When Dutch colonists arrived in America, they built their first church named afte the saint in what is now New York. The Dutch Sint Nikolaas, with the variant Sinterklass, then evolved into Santa Claus when the English-speaking population of 17th century America adopted the saint’s legend. The Dutch children’s wooden shoes by the hearth had evolved into stockings by the chimney.

“St. Nicholas’ feast day is December 6. he is traditionally commemorated in both Roman and Greek Orthrodox churches and is the patron saint of Russia and Greece and the cities of Moscow and Fribourg in Switzerland. A 6th century church was built in his honor by the Roman emperor Justinian I in what is now Istanbul, Turkey.

“St. Nicholas was buried in Myra, his place of birth, until Italian sailors removed his remains and took them to Bari in Italy. The saint’s relics are now at the Basilica of San Nicola, an 11th century church in Bari. Thus is St. Nicholas known as both St. Nicholas of Myra and St. Nicholas of Bari.

“One thing had remained about St. Nicholas throughout the centuries – that of a compassionate gift-giver, which identified him further with the Christmas season, it being a time for gift giving. Thus is Santa Claus the same as Sint Nikolaas or Sinterklaas of the Dutch, Father Christmas of the English, and Kris Kringle of the Germans. The Italians and Russians have their respective female counterparts, Belfana and Babushka….”