WHO IS FATHER CHRISTMAS (or SANTA)?
 

Father Christmas, or Santa Claus, this mythical white-beard gift-giver figure who rides around in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, started with a real person: Saint Nicholas of Myre. Would you like to know how he entered popular imagination? Then let me tell you his wonderful story.

According to tradition, Saint Nicholas was born between 250 and 270 AD in the ancient Lycian town of Patara that is now part of Turkey. He was the only son of a wealthy family, and when his parents died of the plague, Nicholas was still very young. He grew up in a monastery and became a priest at the age of 17. He did not like the crowds and preferred instead the quietness of the church.

When still young he went on a pilgrimage to Egypt and Palestine; on the way home he knew about the death of his uncle, the bishop of Myre; he then went to the church and was chosen to be the successor of his uncle. According to legend, the bishops in charge of electing the new bishop had heard a voice advising them to choose the first person to enter the church whose name was Nicholas. And this is how he became bishop of Myre.

Saint Nicholas was very old when he died on December 6, 343; after his death he was elevated to sainthood. Possibly because at the time of his death the Catholic Church started celebrating Jesus's Nativity on December 25, Saint Nicholas Day was immediately associated to the season. He was buried at Myra, and by the seventh century his shrine there had already become a well-known pilgrimage place. In 1087, Italian merchants from Bari stole his remains and took them to their home town, where they are still enshrined in the eleventh-century basilica built for the purpose. The Italian merchants certainly thought they had the right of so acting, simply because some time before his death, Saint Nicholas had spent overnight in Bari on his way to Myre after having visited the Holy Father in Rome.

Saint Nicholas's life gave rise to many legends, most of them with historical fundament, contrarily to what is sometimes generally believed. Whatever the truth nevertheless may be, these legends all took inspiration from the saint's reputation for kindness and generosity. Devotion to Saint Nicholas extended to a major part of Europe: he became the patron saint of Russia and Greece; and his cult developed also in France (especially in Alsace and Lorraine, where in the Church of Saint-Nicolas-de-Port there is a finger of the saint that a French crusader brought from Saint Nicholas's shrine in Bari), in Belgium, in the Netherlands, in Germany, in Austria... After the Reformation, however, Saint Nicholas's cult was partly abandoned in the Protestant countries of Europe. From then onwards he was called "Père Noël" in France; "Father Christmas" by the English; "Weihnachtsmann" by the Germans; only the Dutch continued to call him "Sinterklaas" as before. It is general belief that Saint Nicholas's cult was taken to the States by Dutch colonists in the seventeenth century, and the mispronounciation would have originated the name "Santa Claus".

It is rather amazing, however, that the popular Santa view we know today originated from two publishing events and a publicity campaign in the States. In fact, in 1821 (or 1822) a Protestant priest named Clement Clarke Moore wrote a Christmas tale describing a jolly old white-beard fellow that travelled around in a sleigh pulled by reindeer and distributed gifts to wise children. Years later, between 1863 and 1886, the Harper's Weekly magazine ran a series of illustrations by Thomas Nast, portraying Santa reading letters and making lists of presents in his workshop.

Whoever reads the story (a poem, in fact) will therefore find in it every reference to the sleigh, the names of the reindeer, the bags of toys down the chimney and, of course, the traditional white and red suit of bishops. Nast's illustrations, in turn, mostly contributed to all the commercial impact and business around Santa's friendly figure.

The major role in the Santa's popular image was however played by Coca-Cola that every year, between 1931 and 1964, ran a worldwide advertising campaign that appeared on the back covers of magazines like National Geographic.

All the features transmitted by these three events were associated to evolve into the popular common figure that nowadays makes part of children's and grownup's lives at this merry season: the white beard, the bishop's hat and suit. Saint Nicholas travelled on the back of an ass; Santa rides a sleigh pulled by reindeer. But no matter we call him Santa, Father Christmas, Tomten or by any other name, he is always the one who belongs to the sweet dreams of our childhood, to the fairy tales that pass from generation to generation...

What about having a good laugh with Father Christmas? That's what awaits you when you read my play FATHER CHRISTMAS HAS THE FLU, a tale for all young at heart.

© Dulce Rodrigues