I was going to do a long piece about all the Christian myths surrounding Christmas generally, but Kristi Harrison has done it for us on Cracked. Instead, here's a short retread of something I did a few years ago about Santa Claus.
The legend of Santa Claus can be traced back hundreds of years to a monk named St. Nicholas. It is believed that Nicholas was born sometime around 280 A.D. in Patara, near Myra in modern-day Turkey. This is during the later period of the Roman Empire, but before the Empire split into East and West.
Incidentally, St George also came from Turkey, about a century later. This is really useful for annoying pin-headed nationalists, and should be mentioned whenever anyone starts going on about how no-one celebrates St George's Day because of political correctness. It's also worth adding that his mother was Palestinian. Honestly, it really annoys them.
St Nicholas was venerated in early Christian legend for saving sailors from storms, protecting children, and giving generous gifts to the poor. The Christian figure of Saint Nicholas replaced or incorporated various pagan gift-giving gods from Rome or central Europe.
They did the incorporating thing a lot. The halo, for instance, comes from Syrian sun worship, as does the date of Christmas, which was only given to Jesus as a birthday in 354 AD - before that it was January 6th. No, they didn't tell us that in school, did they? Tell your children, though, won't you?
Some of you may be surprised to see that Santa Claus originated in what is today a Muslim country, but Turkey was actually Christian for longer than it's been Muslim. The more provisional, less adjusted wing of the Greek Orthodox church still believe that God wants them to reclaim Istanbul in his name and call it Constantinople again. Ah, those cheeky nationalists and their wacky ideas.
In Holland and Germany Nicholas was sometimes said to ride through the sky on a horse. He was accompanied by Black Peter, an elf whose job was to whip the naughty children. I don't recall that from the Disney version. The feast day of Nicholas, when presents were received, was on December 6.
After the Reformation, German Protestants encouraged the worship of Jesus as a gift giver on his own feast day, December 25. The Nicholas tradition then became attached to Christmas itself. Pope Paul VI dropped the feast of Saint Nicholas on December 6th from the official Roman Catholic calendar in 1969.
Santa Claus came from the Dutch legend of Sinter Klaas, brought to America by Dutch settlers in New York in the 17th century (New York was originally called New Amsterdam, and Harlem was originally Haarlem, a Dutch name). The story arrived bit by bit, gaining all the familiar elements as time passed. The first time Santa was brought to a mass market was in Coca-Cola's advertising campaign in 1931. Rudolph and his drinker's nose were invented in 1939.
So the next time someone mentions the true spirit of Christmas, tell them it's raki, washed down with Coke.
Actually, the true spirit of Christmas is Sainsbury's Irish Cream. And none of these facts seem to obstruct the onward march of religion a jot. Now they've miniaturised the Bible, and printed it on a chip the size of a pin head. Very clever, but not as clever as not doing.
25/12/07 @ 13:42