The Real Saint Nick

Ever wonder where the modern myth of Santa Claus came from? The clue is in the word “modern” as he’s only been around really since the early 1800s. Building upon the European popularity of Saint Nicolas (Sinter Klaus, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, etc) in the late 1700 and early 1800s Dutch residents in New York popularized the tradition in the New World. In the early 1800s a growing commercialism likewise took hold of the gift giving tradition which translated into advertisement and shopping mall Santas. In 1822 the Episcopal minister, C.C. Moore, wrote the poem “Twas the night before Christmas,” which added many other elements to the gift giving tradition, including reindeer. In 1881 Thomas Nast illustrated the modern image of Santa.  In the 1890s the Salvation Army sent unemployed men dresses as Santa to collect donations. In the 1930s and 40s the lore receive a huge boost through film, namely Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (’39) and Miracle on 34th Street (’47). Songs such as “Santa Claus is coming to Town” (’34) and Coca-Cola advertisements did much to embed the popular conceptions. Such modern myths have nothing to do with the real meaning of Christmas (the birth of Christ) and very very little to do with the real saint Nick.[1]
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Santa Claus means Saint Nicolas, it is a derivative of Dutch and ultimately Latin. Sainthood was an idea that slowly developed from the Patristic period and into the Mediaeval Ages to honour exemplary Christians (to the earliest Christians, grounded in the teaching of Scripture, saw every believe as a saint, or a holy and chosen one of God in Christ). Nicolas was one such man, an Overseer from Myra in Lycia (south western Turkey) in the late third to early fourth centuries. Very little is known about him, though even after his death he remained very popular. He was imprisoned during the persecution of Emperor Diocletian. There are many reports that he attended the important Church council of Nicaea. A church was first built in his honour in Constantinople (Istanbul) in AD 565 and a shrine arose around his supposed burial location in AD 1087 in Bari (southern Italy). He became the patron saint of children because he is said to have inherited great wealth which he gave away. Famously he is said to have rescued three young girls from being sold into prostitution by purchasing their freedom and providing them with a dowry.[2] Inevitably this man became renowned for his kindness and generosity. As a Christian, such charity was surely rooted in the generosity of God’s grace shown to him in Christ, and were an outpouring of his changed life as an adornment of the Gospel (Tit 2:10), forsaking wealth and storing up treasure in Heaven. How very different the real Nicholas is from the modern myth of Santa Claus. Isn’t truth refreshing? May he be our example to look to Christ this Christmas and embrace a Christ-like kindness and generosity that is the fruit of faith, a faith we all so desperately need.


[1] https://www.history.com/topics/christmas/santa-claus

[2] F.L. Cross, ed., Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (1958), 955.