Reflections: Conversations, Essays, and Other Writings

The Origins of Santa Claus

This was the first of several holiday articles that I wrote for the New York Sun. The Origins of Santa Claus Santa Claus is the contemporary embodiment of Nicholas of Myra, a fourth-century bishop who is revered by the Roman Catholic Church as a saint. According to legend,when Nicholas was an infant,his mother nursed him twice a week and he fasted on the other five days. He is said to have rescued drowning sailors by halting a storm at sea and saved the life of a prisoner by seizing the executioner’s sword. Nicholas was also reportedly quite rich,adored children,and delighted in giving gifts to the deserving poor.The most famous tale regarding his wealth concerns three sisters whose father, unable to give them a dowry, resolved to cast them into a life of prostitution. One morning, the sisters awoke and found three bags of gold that Nicholas had thrown through their window during the night.Thereafter, the sisters were married. Many religious scholars believe that St.Nicholas never existed.Regardless , his birthday (thought to be December 6) was celebrated throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance by giving presents to children as the saint himself had done. Meanwhile, the Dutch came to venerate him as the patron saint of sailors, known as “Sinter Klaas.” When the New World was settled, the Dutch brought Sinter Klaas with them. In 1804, the NewYork Historical Society was founded with St. Nicholas as its patron saint, and its members engaged in the practice of gift giving at Christmas.In 1812,Washington Irving penned a revised version of A History of NewYork and described Nicholas as riding in a wagon over trees. But most portraits of the original Saint Nicholas portray him as severe-looking and gaunt; dressed in gray, not red.The Santa Claus we know today is a jollier presence and largely the creation of three men. The first eyewitness sighting of the contemporary St. Nicholas has been long credited to a professor of divinity named Clement Clark REFLECTIONS 327 Moore.Some revisionist scholars attribute memorialization of the sighting to Henry Livingston Jr, a poet who lived at the same time as Moore. What is not in dispute is that, on December 23, 1822, Moore read his children a poem as a Christmas treat.The following year,“An Account of aVisit From Saint Nicholas” was published in TheTroy Sentinel, and a new vision of the saint began to spread: His eyes how they twinkled; his dimples how merry; His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry; His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow. He had a broad face, and a little round belly That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly. He was chubby and plump; a right jolly old elf; And I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself. But Moore’s Santa was little and dressed in fur, not red.Then, four decades later, the American political cartoonist Thomas Nast turned his attention to St. Nicholas. Beginning with an 1862 illustration for the cover of Harper’s Weekly, Nast drew Santa for the rest of the century. However, his creation—albeit kindly, warmhearted, and rotund—was elflike. Finally, in 1931,American capitalism had its say. Coca-Cola commissioned a rendition of Santa Claus from an artist named Haddon Sundblom. Sundblom delivered a large modern-day Santa dressed in red. Coke plastered millions of copies of the image across the country in a massive promotional campaign. Previous visions of Santa were all but eradicated. That’s the Santa Claus most of us know today—a commercial version of a political cartoonist’s vision based on a poem that might have been written by a doctor of divinity. But the question remains:“Does Santa Claus really exist?” The NewYork Sun is an authority on the subject. In 1897, an eightyear -old namedVirginia O’Hanlon, who lived on the UpperWest Side of Manhattan, wrote a letter to the newspaper that read:“Dear Editor—I am eight years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa 328 THOMAS HAUSER says,‘If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?” In response,Francis P.Church,an editor at The Sun,penned...