Spotlight: Saint Nicholas Day and Santa Claus

Saint Nicholas, the inspiration for our modern day Santa Claus, was an actual person born in the late Third Century in modern-day Turkey. Nicholas was orphaned at a young age when his parents died in an epidemic. Nicholas inherited a great deal of wealth, and as a young man, he gained a reputation for generosity, often by way of secret gift giving. According to legend, Nicholas knew of a poor man who had three daughters. The man had no money to provide his daughters with dowries, which meant that they would be unable to marry and would likely face lives of slavery or prostitution. Nicholas secretively threw three bags of gold into the man’s home at night through an open window, one dowry for each daughter. The bags of gold landed in stockings or shoes left by the fire to dry. This led to the custom of children hanging stockings or putting out shoes before bed, waiting for gifts from Saint Nicholas. Nicholas was later named Bishop of Myra, where his good works continued. Living under the Roman Empire, Nicholas, along with many other Christian clergymen, was persecuted and imprisoned during the reign of Emperor Diocletian. He was released after the accession of Emperor Constantine. It is believed that Nicholas died in Myra on December 6, 343 AD. People began celebrating him as a saint shortly thereafter. In addition to his charity and heart for children, Saint Nicholas is known as the patron saint of sailors based on a miracle he performed on a ship returning to Greece from the Holy Land, when he prayed to calm a frightful storm preventing a shipwreck.

By the Middle Ages, Saint Nicholas had become one of Europe’s most beloved saints. His feast day, celebrated on the day of his death, December 6th, became an occasion for giving small gifts, especially in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Over time, these customs evolved and spread. The evening of December 5th, Saint Nicholas Eve, became the time when Saint Nicholas visited homes across Europe. Children were encouraged to leave their shoes or stockings out to be filled with treats if they had behaved well during the year.

As the years passed, a reward-punishment system arose, linking this Christian symbol of quiet generosity with a fearsome figure from pre-Christian Central European folklore, Krampus. Krampus, generally depicted as a horned, hairy creature, with one human foot and one cloven goat hoof, originated from pagan winter rituals celebrating the Winter Solstice, in which frightening, animalistic figures were used to chase away evil spirits during the darkest time of the year. When Christianity spread throughout Europe, these older pagan customs blended with new religious practices. Krampus was said to accompany Saint Nicholas visiting homes on the night of December 5th. The legend became that while Saint Nicholas rewarded good children, Krampus dealt with the naughty ones through warnings, switches, or even carrying them away from their homes in a sack.

When Henry VIII broke with the Catholic church in 1534, he outlawed celebrations relating to Saint Nicholas Day in England. A secular figure “Father Christmas” increased in popularity as the personification of Christmas cheer. Celebration shifted from December 6th to Christmas Day. Father Christmas, dressed in fur-lined robes of red or green, was associated with feasting and revelry, rather than gift-giving.

British colonists continued to celebrate using the idea of Father Christmas in North America. Dutch settlers to the New York colony brought the tale of Saint Nicholas along with them. Around the time of the Revolutionary War, “Sinterklaas,” the Dutch name for Saint Nicholas, was transformed to “Santa Claus.” The idea of Santa as we know him today is a combination of Saint Nicholas and Father Christmas. The image of a plump, jolly man traveling in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer was born out of the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas," commonly referred to as "Twas the Night Before Christmas," first published anonymously in the Troy, New York Sentinel on December 23, 1823. The poem depicts Saint Nicholas landing his sleigh on the roof, coming down the chimney, and filling stockings with toys. The Coca-Cola Company takes credit for popularizing a plump, jolly, red-suited version of Santa Claus. In 1930, a commissioned artist painted a department store Santa in a crowd drinking a bottle of Coke for print ads in The Saturday Evening Post. The ad was set in the world’s largest soda fountain, which was located in the Famous Barr department store in St. Louis. The advertising campaign was a success and the next year, Coca-Cola hired Michigan artist Haddon Sundblom to create an image of Santa Claus in line with the “Twas the Night Before Christmas” poem. Sundblom honed his version of Santa Claus in Coca-Cola ads from 1931 to 1964, and his images of Santa have continued to be used in Coca-Cola ads since that time.