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About Santa Claus
The traditional image
that we have of Santa today is the Santa That was created by Haddon Sundblom in
1931. Sunblom created his Santa to advertise Coca Cola.
England's "Father
Christmas wears a red, fur lined robe and fills children's stockings with presents on
Christmas Eve.
In 1863, Thomas Nast
popularized Santa Claus as a jolly elf with his illustrations for the newspaper
"Harper's Weekly."
Here is an interesting
adaptation from www.the-north-pole.com
"American
Origins: (As sent to me by Brian Dodd)
Quote from ENCARTA 95
The American version of the Santa
Claus figure received its inspiration and its name from the Dutch legend of Sinter Klaas,
brought by settlers to New York in the 17th century.
As early as 1773 the name appeared
in the American press as "St. A Claus," but it was the popular author Washington
Irving who gave Americans their first detailed information about the Dutch version of
Saint Nicholas. In his History of New York, published in 1809 under the pseudonym Diedrich
Knickerbocker, Irving described the arrival of the saint on horseback (unaccompanied by
Black Peter) each Eve of Saint Nicholas.
This Dutch-American Saint Nick
achieved his fully Americanized form in 1823 in the poem A Visit From Saint Nicholas more
commonly known as The Night Before Christmas by writer Clement Clarke Moore. Moore
included such details as the names of the reindeer; Santa Claus's laughs, winks, and nods;
and the method by which Saint Nicholas, referred to as an elf, returns up the chimney.
(Moore's phrase "lays his finger aside of his nose" was drawn directly from
Irving's 1809 description.)
The American image of Santa Claus was further elaborated by illustrator Thomas Nast, who
depicted a rotund Santa for Christmas issues of Harper's magazine from the 1860s to the
1880s. Nast added such details as Santa's workshop at the North Pole and Santa's list of
the good and bad children of the world. A human-sized version of Santa Claus, rather than
the elf of Moore's poem, was depicted in a series of illustrations for Coca-Cola
advertisements introduced in 1931. In modern versions of the Santa Claus legend, only his
toy-shop workers are elves. Rudolph, the ninth reindeer, with a red and shiny nose, was
invented in 1939 by an advertising writer for the Montgomery Ward Company.
In looking for the historical roots
of Santa Claus, one must go very deep in the past. One discovers that Santa Claus as we
know him is a combination of many different legends and mythical creatures.
The basis for the Christian-era
Santa Claus is Bishop Nicholas of Smyrna (Izmir), in what is now Turkey. Nicholas lived in
the 4th century A.D. He was very rich, generous, and loving toward children. Often he gave
joy to poor children by throwing gifts in through their windows.
The Orthodox Church later raised
St. Nicholas, miracle worker, to a position of great esteem. It was in his
honor that
Russia's oldest church, for example, was built. For its part, the Roman Catholic Church
honored Nicholas as one who helped children and the poor. St. Nicholas became the patron
saint of children and seafarers. His name day is December 6th.
In the Protestant areas of central
and northern Germany, St. Nicholas later became known as der Weinachtsmann. In England he
came to be called Father Christmas. St. Nicholas made his way to the United States with
Dutch immigrants, and began to be referred to as Santa Claus.
In North American poetry and
illustrations, Santa Claus, in his white beard, red jacket and pompom-topped cap, would
sally forth on the night before Christmas in his sleigh, pulled by eight reindeer, and
climb down chimneys to leave his gifts in stockings children set out on the fireplace's
mantelpiece.
Children naturally wanted to know
where Santa Claus actually came from. Where did he live when he wasn't delivering
presents? Those questions gave rise to the legend that Santa Claus lived at the North
Pole, where his Christmas-gift workshop was also located.
In 1925, since grazing reindeer
would not be possible at the North Pole, newspapers revealed that Santa Claus in fact
lived in Finnish Lapland. "Uncle Markus", Markus Rautio, who compared
the
popular "Children's hour" on Finnish public radio, revealed the great secret for
the first time in 1927: Santa Claus lives on Lapland's Korvatunturi - "Ear Fell"
The fell, which is situated
directly on Finland's eastern frontier, somewhat resembles a hare's ears - which are in
fact Santa Claus's ears, with which he listens to hear if the world's children are being
nice. Santa has the assistance of a busy group of elves, who have quite their own history
in Scandinanvian legend.
Over the centuries, customs from
different parts of the Northern Hemisphere thus came together and created the whole
world's Santa Claus - the ageless, timeless, deathless white-bearded man who gives out
gifts on Christmas and always returns to Korvatunturi in Finnish Lapland.
Since the 1950s, Santa has happily
sojourned at Napapiiri, near Rovaniemi, at times other than Christmas, to meet children
and the young at heart. By 1985 his visits to Napapiiri had become so regular that he
established his own Santa Claus Office there. He comes there every day of the year to hear
what children want for Christmas and to talk with children who have arrived from around
the world. Santa Claus Village is also the location of Santa's main Post Office, which
receives children's letters from the four corners of the world. |
