All about Santa Claus

Christmas has always been popularly symbolised with a Christmas Tree, and the very popular figure of the fat, cute and chubby Santa Claus. “If you be a good kid, Santa will reward you with your desired gift on Christmas, but if you be a bad kid, Santa will never visit your home.” Every childhood memory of Christmas comprises of such threats often given by our parents. In 1087, Italian sailors or merchants stole his alleged remains from Myra and took them to Bari, Italy; this removal greatly increased the saint`s popularity in Europe, and Bari became one of the most crowded of all pilgrimage centres. Nicholas` relics remain enshrined in the 11th-century basilica of San Nicola, Bari.

Nicholas` reputation for generosity and kindness gave rise to legends of miracles he performed for the poor and unhappy. He was reputed to have given marriage dowries of gold to three girls whom poverty would otherwise have forced into lives of prostitution, and he restored to life three children who had been chopped up by a butcher and put in a brine tub. In the Middle Ages, devotion to Nicholas extended to all parts of Europe. He became the patron saint of Russia and Greece; of charitable fraternities and guilds; of children, sailors, unmarried girls, merchants, and pawnbrokers; and of such cities as Fribourg, Switz., and Moscow. Thousands of European churches were dedicated to him, one as early as the sixth century, built by the Roman emperor Justinian I, at Constantinople (now Istanbul). Nicholas` miracles were a favourite subject for medieval artists and liturgical plays, and his traditional feast day was the occasion for the ceremonies of the Boy Bishop, a widespread European custom in which a boy was elected bishop and reigned until Holy Innocents` Day (December 28). After the Reformation, Nicholas` cult disappeared in all the Protestant countries of Europe except Holland, where his legend persisted as Sinterklaas (a Dutch variant of the name Saint Nicholas). Dutch colonists took this tradition with them to New Amsterdam (now New York City) in the American colonies in the 17th century. Sinterklaas was adopted by the country`s English-speaking majority under the name Santa Claus, and his legend of a kindly old man was united with old Nordic folktales of a magician who punished naughty children and rewarded good children with presents. It is amazing but true that the common, popular view of Santa that we all have today, along with all the crazy things around Santa like the sleigh, the reindeer and the chimney, all came largely from two publishing events that occurred in the 1800s and one advertising campaign in this century. Clement Moore wrote "The Night Before Christmas" in 1822 for his family. It was picked up by a newspaper, then reprinted in magazines and it spread like wildfire. The sleigh, coming up with the chimney and the bag of toys, etc. all have come from his imagination. Then, between 1863 and 1886, Harper`s Weekly (a popular magazine of the time) ran a series of engravings by Thomas Nast. From these images come the concepts of Santa`s workshop, Santa reading letters, Santa checking his list and so on. Coca-Cola also played a role in the Santa image by running a set of paintings by Haddon Sundblom in its ads between 1931 to 1964. The red and white suit came, actually, from the original Saint Nicholas. Those colors were the colors of the traditional bishop`s robes. Rudolf the reindeer at the front, with red, glowing nose capable of penetrating thick fog: The whole story of Rudolf appeared, out of nowhere, in 1939. Santas at Montgomery Ward stores gave away 2.4 million copies of a booklet entitled "Rudolf the Red-Nose Reindeer." The story was written by a person in the advertising department named Robert May, and the booklet was illustrated by Denver Gillen. The original name of the reindeer was not Rudolf, according to the book ‘Extraordinary Origins of Ordinary Things’ by Charles Panati. The original name was Rollo, but executives did not like that name, nor Reginald. The name Rudolf came from the author`s young daughter! In 1949, Gene Autry sang a musical version of the poem and it was a run-away best-seller. The Rudolf song is second only to "White Christmas" in popularity.